Story By: Sibel Abdiu, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN
This is the moment a suspended cop allegedly shot dead two fellow officers and left a third fighting for his life a week after broadcasting his intentions on social media.
Tragically, police in the city of Adana in the province of the same name in southern Turkey had missed the warning.
CCTV footage shows police officer Ahmet Altug confront his bosses inside a police building before pulling out his handgun and opening fire at close range.
Altug had posted on social media one week before the incident: “Everybody will pay for what they did. We will all see who will resign and who will run for his life.”
The cop, who had been accused of corruption, had been taken off front line duties and assigned to a desk job six months earlier.
He was desperate to be reinstated and had been granted a meeting with his bosses, Police Chief Cengiz Aydogdu and Commissioner Habil Aykan.
But the meeting, in a police station in the Cukurova district of Adana, did not go as he hoped and he left angry and disappointed.
Altug is accused of returning with his gun and marching straight past security officers who did not search him as they recognised him.
He reportedly walked up to Chief Aydogdu and Commissioner Aykan, who were with a third officer, Kenan Ozdemir, and started shouting threats.
Altug allegedly took out his gun and eventually shot all three. He was seen being grabbed by another police officer on camera after the killings, but got free, ran out of the building, sat on a bench and put his gun to his own head.
However, he was followed by several police officers who, after about 30 minutes, persuaded him to put down his weapon and give himself up.
The three wounded police officers meanwhile had been rushed to hospital where, despite doctors’ best efforts, Chief Aydogdu and Commissioner Aykan died.
Doctors are still fighting to save the life of Officer Ozdemir in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Altug faces murder charges. Soner Cetin, the Mayor of Cukuova, promised police would launch a full investigation into the incident.