Police on the island of Mykonos beat up a diabetic during a hypoglycemic shock because they thought he was a drug addict.
The 45-year-old man had just disembark from the ferry and he felt that he was about to suffer a hypoglycemic shock.
“I drove my car some 50-60 meters away, I stopped it and I passed out,” the police victim told several media. “When I came to my senses, I saw policemen pulling me and shouting at me what have you taken, have you taken cocaine?”
Stating that he was unable to speak or move, the businessman and father of three quickly found himself in handcuffs.
“They tied my hands behind my back and pulled me,” the man recalled adding that when he came to his senses from the blood sugar shock he heard the police shouting “Who are you? What are you?” They the grabbed him and pulled him out of the car exercising physical and verbal violence.
“One was pulling me, he had grabbed my leg under the seat, and he was pulling me with force and hitting me here and there. The other hit my head on the door. They put the handcuffs with the hand behind my back,” the man said who has been diagnosed with diabetes since he was 25 years old.
They took him to local police station, where they told him “when there are handcuffs, there might be a little violence.”
He spent another 45 minutes at the police station before they took him to the local health center.
“I could die, you can have a stroke if your blood sugar drops,” the man stressed about the incident of police violence.
A friend of mine who called me saved me. I was shouting at them that my blood sugar had dropped. Then they took me to the health center,” the victim said.
Τhe man’s father told media that when his son was at the health center his life was in acute danger. “His blood sugar was down to 53 or 58 and the doctor said he had 10 to 15 minutes.”
Police on the incident
The Greek Police denied the media reports and issued a statement alleging a different version of the incident on May 6, claiming “distortion of the police intervention.”
“The driver of the car refused to comply with the police officers instructions […], shouted and made gestures […].
“The police officers determined that the vehicle was near the coastline and, given its location and the fact that the engine was running, there was an increased risk of causing an accident with a risk to the life of the driver, the police officers and any passer-by.
In this context, the police officers, acting with professionalism and composure, proceeded to restrain and safely remove the driver from the vehicle, which they also removed from the scene.”
Victim to sue Police
The man’s lawyer described the incident as “abuse of power.” He told Mega TV “here the offense is not the beating or the use of force on a citizen, where the police will say that in order to handcuff him I will have to use some force on him. The serious thing here is the abuse of power. Why handcuff someone who is half-conscious in his car on the side of the road and why take him to the police station? There is no criminal offense or suspicion of criminal offense.”
The lawyer added “here they found a man half-conscious and insteadof calling an ambulance, they handcuffed him and took him to the station.”
The lawyer reiterated “this is an abuse of power and confessed by the police statement, no matter how carefully worded it was.”
He added that when the victim’s friend called and shouted that the man was diabetic a policeman gave him some sugar and then took him to the health center.
The victim, a businessman well-known on Mykonos, plans to file a lawsuit.
PS Apparently for the Greek Police it is totally OK to beat and use violence against a drug addict, right?up a drug addict.