The people of Paros take the law into their own hands

The people of Paros are giving a cry of anguish as the island has been at the mercy of thugs for the last three years. Paros receives hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and is essentially defenseless against all kinds of criminals, some of whom rape and kill undisturbed. "Enough is enough, and from now on we will protect our children and our property ourselves, even with guns."

Many people are against the local police force who all these years have looked almost indifferently at the growth of minor criminality, which whetted the appetite of all sorts of criminals to come to the island since they knew in advance that the probability of getting caught was minimal.

The savage attack on the 15-year-old student was the tip of the iceberg as the indifference and repeated errors of the local police, who attributed her very heavy injuries to an accident, resulted in loss of valuable time and clues. There had to be an intervention by Athens Homicide to solve the case and arrest the perpetrator.

But Paros is roaring and the data that is coming to light is shocking and shows the complete lack of enforcement and protection of both residents and tourists. After the brutal murder of the taxi driver and the shots fired in the center of Naoussa in Paros, neighbors were calling the police department for several hours but no one answered.

"It is not the first time something like this happens," locals say. In the past, and more recently even, local police officers do what they can to get rid of cases, closing them in a perfunctory manner even in the case of rapes or armed robberies.

"The situation has come to a dead-end," locals say and ask the minister of Citizen Protection to take measures in order to provide adequate policing of the island.