89-year-old gunman on the run after mass shooting in Greek capital

ATHENS — A manhunt has been launched in the Greek capital Athens for an 89-year-old suspect following a shooting spree which left five people wounded, according to police and local media reports. Armed with a shotgun, the gunman initially opened fire at the social security office in Petralona on Tuesday, wounding an employee, police said. Police officers who arrived at the scene treated the man, but the gunman fled the scene. Local media aired security camera footage that it said was from a local store near the social security office, which showed a man walking calmly across the street carrying what appears to be a short-barreled shotgun in his right hand. The same man was suspected of later opening fire on the ground floor of a court building in another part of central Athens, with several people wounded there, police said, adding that authorities had found the shotgun. Television footage showed ambulance crews transporting at least three people from the courthouse to waiting ambulances. The head of the Athens Judicial Employees Union, Stratis Dounias, said that initial information indicated that the man had shot at the floor inside one of the offices in the court building. At least three female court employees were slightly wounded by ricocheting shotgun pellets, while media reports said that a fourth female employee was transported to a hospital without physical injuries. The motive for the shooting is not yet clear, but state broadcaster ERT News said the gunman threw envelopes on the floor of the courthouse which he said contained the reasons for his actions. Alexandros Varveris, head of the National Social Security Fund known by its Greek acronym EFKA, said the gunman had gone to the fourth floor of the social security fund’s offices in the Kerameikos area of central Athens and opened fire after calling out to an employee to duck. His shot hit another employee, who was wounded in the leg, Varveris said, adding that the gunman had been wearing a trenchcoat under which he had hidden the shotgun. “He went in, went up to the fourth floor, raised his shotgun, told an employee to duck and hit another one,” Varveris told ERT radio. He said the gunman didn’t appear to specifically target the employee he hit. The wounded employee was transported to a hospital, after police applied a tourniquet to his leg at the scene. Gun violence is relatively rare in Greece, where firearm ownership is allowed but tightly regulated. — Agencies