This was the unsettling scene this weekend after a man walked up to the head of an ethnic Turkish party in Bulgaria and tried to fire in the head of Ahmed Dogan, 58, the leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The gun used by Oktai Enimehmedov, a 25-year-old Bulgarian national and ethnic Turk, was a non-lethal “gas pistol” which will lower the potential charge for the assailant.
In the video below, Dogan strikes the man before he could pull the trigger. What follows is chaos with several delegates beating the man on the stage. The man had a criminal record of drug possession, robbery, and hooliganism. Despite the understandable anger, however, the attack by delegates was inexcusable in the aftermath as they kicked him in the face and body.
The gun was later found to be a gas pistol that was non-lethal and fires tear gas cartridges. As a result, he will be charged with “grave hooliganism” rather than attempted manslaughter.
not even a hello kitty gun is allowed verbally let alone physically here. Yet again another security feature put in place to protect those without the rights or liberties to protect them self’s from opposing view points.
When I saw this, I thought : “Maybe this is just another cheap movie series by the AMC channel.” How wrong was I! How did he get that close? Or get in the building with a weapon? And they are not charging him with attempt murder? His head would’ve been removed in the middle east!
First of all, it’s not OK for a bunch of guys to kick and pummel someone on the ground, period. Second of all, the fact that nobody stepped up officially with handcuffs is pretty astonishing and tells us a lot about the fools who organized this proceeding. Even WITHOUT handcuffs it is possible to both restrain and neutralize a man without that kind of display. AND if he had another weapon, their conduct would not have made anyone safer from the other weapon because they were not pinning his arms and hands down; they were just kicking him. Idiotic and very bad behavior. It looked to me like they were angry that they were so incompetent and they had to vent their anger. The guy did “deserve” a beating but that is irrelevant. Many people “deserve” what should not be done. Some people even “deserve” what should NEVER be done.
Security was horribly lacking here. It did not seem there were any presidential body guards here.
There was an incident many years ago that went very badly for the Secret Service. President Reagan, who had left office, was giving a speech at an event. Suddenly a man darted up from the crowd, smashed a crystal award of some kind, then stepped in front of Reagan and began to speak into the microphone. He was then snatched away by Secret Service agents.
The fallout of this was that the man had been able to reach the president in such a way another person could have attacked him with fatal results. There was a lot of controversy over that. The incident in Bulgaria is exactly what could happen.
Kudos to the Bulgarian man for fighting off the assailant to defend himself.
One guy on the ground gets kicked by several who are standing and it’s ok? It only shows the incompetence of the kickers to do anything useful.Further, they were impeding those who knew how to take detain him.
1. Quick reaction from the old guy on stage. Props to him!
2. Something slightly ironic about one Bulgarian citizen, ethnicTurk trying to kill another Bulgarian citizen, ethnic Turk, considering that Bulgarians generally despise Turks. You’d think they stick together, but I suppose the heretic is always hated more than the infidel.
3. Were there no police anywhere around? The only guys who responded were not in uniform and did not look like professional security given their lack of handcuffs and extreme difficulty controlling the guy. Pretty poor response from those guys if they were security.
4. Beating and kicking was excusable. Not only did it look like the guy was still resisting, but I’m gonna give anyone a pass who gives a few non-lethal kicks or punches to someone who comes out of no where and points a gun at the head of someone.
the secret service jumped on John Hinkley and I am not sure I remember any blood baths by law enforcement at political events.
fatal shootings by police from 1990 to 2000:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/pgshoot/shootstats.htm
The chances of getting shot by a stray bullet from a cop are very, very small.
the statistics just dont show an out of control police force. I would also like to see the statistics on number of lives saved by police and law enforcement personnel in the line of duty.
He was treated less brutally than peaceful protesters in the US. If this incident had happened here he wouldn’t have been walking out of the venue. Did you notice he wasn’t even handcuffed? There were no obvious guns except the assailant’s and no one was hurt by stray bullets shot by “good guys” with guns. In the US it would have been a bloody scene.
they were just dealing with the threat. that was a big man and it looked to me as if he was not being compliant. they didnt know what other weapons he had.
I take it they do not have a “second amendment” Lucky b@sta@rds
We have a lot of hooligans on the police force….right here in the USA…
a gas pistol can kill someone if there is a projectile involved and a sufficient amount of gas. if you dont think so put a lead ball into your paint ball gun and put it to the head of a pig and pull the trigger. I imagine the pig will die or it wont ever be right again.
the shooter is lucky he is still alive and deserves the beating he got.
How did he get any gun into the hall? The armed guards must have forgotten there guns, because the NRA tells us that only good men with guns can stop a bad man with a gun.
I disagree; I find the attack by delegates is easily excusable.
I believe that assailant consciously used a gas pistol to “make a statement.” Eastern Europe is awash in real guns – that is where the large number of illegal guns in the UK come from – and it would have presented no difficulty to obtain one. Mr. Dogan can count himself lucky.
“The gun was later found to be a gas pistol that was non-lethal and fires tear gas cartridges. As a result, he will be charged with “grave hooliganism” rather than attempted manslaughter.”
What is that … attempting to put a hooligan in the grave, but failing by having the mind of an incompetent hooligan?