Massive riots cripple Greece's main cities

updated 7:43 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2008

ATHENS, Greece - Gangs of youths smashed their way through central Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities on Monday, torching stores and buildings in the third day of mayhem after the fatal police shooting of a teenager.

In the country's worst rioting in decades, dozens of shops, banks and even luxury hotels had their windows smashed and burned as youths fought running battles with riot police. Black smoke rose above the city center, mingling with clouds of tear gas.

In an outpouring of rage, high school and university students joined self-styled anarchists in throwing everything from fruit and coins to rocks and Molotov cocktails at police and attacked police stations throughout the day.

"Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" protesters screamed at riot police.

By early Tuesday, authorities said violence in Athens was abating.

Nearly 90 arrested
Police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis said 89 people have been arrested for attacks on police, vandalism and looting. Another 79 people were detained for questioning, and 12 police officers were injured, he said.

Most of the rioters were holed up in a university building in the city center. "The rest of town is quiet," Stathis said early Tuesday.

The fire service said it responded to more than 200 blazes in central Athens Monday.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose increasingly unpopular government has already faced a growing number of sometimes violent demonstrations in recent months, convened an emergency Cabinet meeting Monday night.

"All the dangerous and unacceptable events that occurred because of the emotions that followed the tragic incident cannot and will not be tolerated," Karamanlis said in a live televised address earlier Monday. "The state will protect society."

Rampage in streets
His calls for calm went unheeded. About 10,000 protesters from the Communist Party of Greece and another left-wing party marched through the center of Athens to protest the teenager's death.

Greek media also reported fires and destruction in the central cities of Larissa, Trikala, as well as in Corinth to the west of Athens, Piraeus, Corfu and the northern town of Veria.

In Athens, rioters torched the capital's massive Christmas tree in central Syntagma Square. As the hooded youths moved on, some protesters posed for photos in front of the blaze, and others sang the Greek version of "O Christmas Tree."

The windows of two of Athens' luxury hotels, the Athens Plaza and the Grande Bretagne on Syntagma Square, were smashed. A hotel guard at the Athens Plaza said its guests had been evacuated.

A lone man with a bucket of water struggled to extinguish a fire in the ground floor of the Foreign Ministry, opposite Parliament. Fires were also reported in the building of an airline and a Greek bank, as well as in tens of other stores in most of Athens' major central streets.

Rioters, meanwhile, set up burning barricades across downtown streets.

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