Two persons died and two were injured following a shootout on Sunday night in the Profitis Elias village in Herakleio, Crete. News reports said that a strong police contingent was dispatched to the area immediately on Monday morning, but also the hospitals, because authorities fear that a vendetta will break.
The reports said that the incidence began when a 34-year-old municipal employee went to a local butcher's shop in order to settle some of his differences with the 52-year-old owner. The two men argued and then they began to physically brawl. In a gesture of good will, the butcher's 17-year-old son attempted to separate the two men but the 34-year-old pulled out a 9mm pistol and suddenly began to fire (police said at least five shots were fired).The result: The butcher got injured in the legs, while an escape bullet wounded the teen boy in the neck and another ricocheted and hit a 64-year-old customer who was in the store at the time of the incident.
Seeing all this, the butcher apparently ran to his car and took out a hunting rifle and shot the 34-year-old in cold blood (two bullets). The butcher, who had been shot in the legs earlier by the deceased, then contacted authorities and immediately turned himself in, telling them that he and his teenage son were the victims of an armed assault by the deceased and that he had acted in self-defense. He said that he was forced to return the fire in order to save his son's life as well as his own.
He was then rushed to the Rethymno Hospital where he is currently under police guard.
Unfortunately the 64-year-old man who was shopping in the butcher store while the incident occurred died after being taken to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the nearby Venizelios Hospital.
And finally the teenage boy is at the Venizelios Hospital's neurosurgery unit under medical care but is stable.
Editor's Note - The people of Crete, who are known world over for their hospitality are nonetheless a very closed society, where traditions play an important role in everyday life. For example the vendetta custom is still alive, and the fact that many Cretans tend to be armed makes the situation even worse. If the pride and dignity of a family is attacked then a vendetta can begin and it will make law-abiding citizens thirst for revenge as they will stop at nothing in order to defend this dignity. So much so that there are vendettas that have lasted for hundreds of years. The Greek state might rule out such actions, but there are still some hardcore Cretan families who preserve this tradition! Interestingly, even a former Greek president, namely Mr. Christos Sartzetakis, fled Crete a few years back for northern Greece in order to escape from a vendetta that involved his relatives.
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