Precinct

Residents of the central Athens district of Exarchia held a rally outside the local police station on Saturday to call for more policing to crack down on crime in their neighborhood. The rally came after locals living on central Kallidromiou Street published a letter denouncing a criminal gang that has been conducting robberies in the area around the police precinct.

Residents of the central Athenian district of Exarchia held a rally outside their local police station on Saturday to protest against criminality in their neighborhood.

The rally comes after locals living on central Kallidromiou Street published a letter denouncing a criminal gang conducting robberies at will in the area around the police precinct.

Members of the Greek Police's (ELAS) bomb disposal unit on Monday used a controlled explosion to destroy a homemade explosive device that was found outside a police precinct in Zografou, eastern Athens. 

The device had been placed inside a metal pipe which was inside a box placed on a wall opposite the precinct. It contained nails and had a timer, according to police sources. 

A 39-year-old man who escaped from the police precinct in Exarchia, downtown Athens, last Monday, was nabbed by police in Athens in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Suspected members of anti-establishment groups attacked a police precinct in the Acropolis neighborhood of the capital on Thursday night, leaving two officers with minor injuries.

Unidentified assailants lobbed stones and sticks at the precinct as they passed it on Thursday night after a rally in nearby Koukaki protesting the proliferation of Airbnb rentals in the area.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has decried the "unprecedented violence" against the Acropolis police precinct in central Athens which was attacked with firebombs on Saturday night.

While visiting the precinct Monday, the conservative leader said the attack placed the lives of police officers at risk, stressing that ND is committed to zero tolerance for violence.

Bomb disposal experts were dispatched to the Ambelokipi police precinct just north of central Athens on Monday afternoon to take control of a hand grenade handed in by a citizen, who claimed he had found it on the street.

The Greek Police (ELAS) has announced plans to either merge or shut down 258 precincts around the country in a streamlining drive to make law enforcement more effective.

The number of the country's police stations will shrink to 948 from 1,206 by incorporating smaller stations into larger ones and scrapping understaffed precincts altogether.