Greek Police said on Saturday that an internal investigation has been ordered on allegations that police officers in plainclothes broke the arm of a 13-year-old student in a park in Larissa. Furthermore, instead of taking the child to the hospital, they took him to police station where he remained for over two hours until his parents were notified.
According to accusations initially made by a parent that were then widely shared on the internet, the police officers did not take the boy to the hospital but took him to the police station for interrogation.
The incident took place on Tuesday, March 30 at 8:30 p.m. A group of five students (three girls and two boys) were hanging out in the park of Agios Antonios when suddenly a group of adults -in plainclothes and without any insignia- surrounded them and started asking them various questions in an aggressive tone and with ugly expressions, aiming at terrorizing them.
The teenagers thought that the adults were thieves, raised their voices and one of them tried to leave the scene. “The police officers grabbed the boy, threw him to the ground and then, executing the well-known stop handle, broke his arm.”
According to the accusations, one of officers turned to the others and said “I broke it!”
The officers dragged the student to police station for interrogation, while the parents were notified and arrived at the police station two hours later. They took their son to the hospital.
Parents of the boy’s friends told media that their children who witnessed the incident of the excessive police violence were in shock.
According to some media reports, the officers were members of anti-drug department.
The statement released by the leadership of the Greek Police said that an administrative inquiry into the event has been launched.
This behaviour from greek drug squads does not really surprise me, shocks me that they broke the arm of the poor 13 year old though. Unbelievable they did not take him to hospital. I hope they get punished and fired for that!
During multiple occasions in different parts of greece over the years i got harassed, threatened and treated like a criminal, no drugs involved from my side.
Once a man jumped out of a parked car and tried to grab me, we started fighting until his college intervened screaming “we are police, here is my id”.
I hope this is investigated and not swept under a carpet as everything else has been since November. This is a child 🥺