Athens braces for a night of riots on 8th anniversary of Grigoropoulos’s death

High-school and University students will gather at the Athens University at 12am, while extreme left, and various anti-authoritarian and anarchist groups will converge on the site at 5pm. Police, who found 150 molotov cocktail bombs stashed in an abandoned house in the Exarchia district, say say the atmosphere is highly tense. The protesters are expected to reach the point where Alexandros Grigoropoulos was killed on the corner of Tzavella and Mesolongiou street. According to the police headquarters plan guards will be doubled at police precincts and public buildings; 2,000 special riot unit police will be spread across “high danger” points in Athens; hundreds officers on motorcycles of the DIAS units will patrol the areas; undercover officers and traffic patrol police will focus entirely on the marches; no reinforcements will arrive from other Greek cities, as demonstrations are also expected to take place there; the action plan also involves the fire department being on high alert; and, prosecutors will be on double shift call. Tghe metro stations of “Panepistimiou” and “Syntagma” will be closed at 3pm and 4.30pm, respectively.