A massive operation to try to capture an armed gunman who killed six people, including his ex-wife, and injured eight others after launching a series of indiscriminate shootings in restaurants and various neighbourhoods of Mersin, in southern Turkey, came to an end in the early hours of 19 May when the suspect took his own life after being surrounded by police, in what constitutes a new armed massacre following those that occurred recently in several secondary schools across the country.
According to information provided by the Turkish news agency Anatolia, the attacker, identified as Metin Ö. aged 37,murdered his ex-wife Arzu Özden – aged 32 – with a shotgun shortly before 2.00 pm yesterday whilst the victim was walking along a street in the Darıpınarı neighbourhood, in the outlying district of Çamlıyayla. Following the murder, the assailant fled the scene of the crime in his vehicle.
After committing these acts, he launched a series of indiscriminate attacks throughout the area; first, he drove to a restaurant owned by Sabri Pan, aged 30, located in the Kadelli neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city of Tarsus, at which he fired from his car window. Once the security forces were alerted, members of the 112 emergency service and the gendarmerie went to the scene, where the restaurant owner and Ahmet Ercan, an 18-year-old employee of the establishment, were found dead.
During his murderous rampage, the perpetrator also took the life of a 16-year-old boy named Yusuf Oktay, whom he killed whilst he was herding animals in the village of Kaburgediği; he also killed a 50-year-old man named Abdullah Koca in the village of Yeniköy, as well as Gökay Selfioğlu, a lorry driver who was waiting at a petrol station in the area. A further eight people were injured yesterday as a result of the suspect’s indiscriminate shooting; he then fled the area after committing the murders, and his vehicle was located during the night in a rural area of the Karakütük district, some 40 kilometres north of the city of Tarsus.
The attacker suffered from various psychiatric problems
Following a major deployment of resources and security forces, it was established that the attacker was hiding in a house near a wooded area in the village of Çokak, where he was surrounded by gendarmerie personnel and special forces. Unable to escape, the teams monitoring the area via helicopters and drones eventually confirmed that Metin Öztürk had taken his own life using his own weapon.
In an official statement following the events, the governor of Mersin confirmed that “the perpetrator of the armed attacks was located by an UAV during operations carried out by gendarmerie units, was surrounded in an operation supported by helicopters, and committed suicide when he realised he could not escape”. He also reported that the attacker had a history of numerous hospital admissions related to substance abuse and various psychiatric problems.
The victims did not know the attacker
A witness to one of the shootings explained that his nephew Veli Şimşek, an employee at a local shop, was injured in the attack and remains in Tarsus public hospital: “At first I thought they were joking, perhaps setting off firecrackers or something similar… but that wasn’t the case. The boy said: ‘I have been shot!’ So I ran towards the car and chased the attacker, but I couldn’t catch him,” said the witness, who stated that they did not know the attacker and that he began firing from his car as soon as he pulled up in front of the shop.
This incident of armed violence in Mersin comes just one month after two shootings carried out by teenagers at separate schools in Turkey shook the country, leaving 16 people injured at a vocational training college in Siverek (Şanlıurfa) and nine dead at a primary school in Kahramanmaraş. In both massacres the attackers took their own lives and most of the victims were minors – many children aged 11–12 – reigniting the debate over possible new restrictions on the possession of firearms in the country.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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