Israeli Police Suicide Causes Panic at Sarkozy Farewell
June 24th, 2008This rates a WTF +10?
Via: Telegraph:
An Israeli border policeman prompted scenes of panic at a Tel Aviv airport this afternoon by committing suicide at a farewell ceremony for President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and his wife, Carla Bruni.
All protocol was dropped as the man’s body fell from a high vantage point and a shot rang out. Mr Sarkozy and Ms Bruni were surrounded by their secret service agents and hastily bundled aboard their plane.
Security guards for Ehud Olmert pulled out their handguns and hustled the Israeli Prime Minister and his entourage into waiting bullet-proof limousines.
When the incident ended, however, Mr Olmert and Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, boarded the Sarkozy plane to say a proper goodbye.
Israel Radio said that the officer who died was about 100m away from the Sarkozy plane as it waited on the runway at Ben Gurion, Israel’s largest international airport. Two women soldiers who witnessed the incident fainted and were treated by medics.
The policeman apparently fell from a vantage point on a high building, where he had been guarding the event. Reports suggest the policeman shot himself in the head. “This was in no way an assassination attempt,” said Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman. “A border policeman … committed suicide during the farewell ceremony.”
According to Mr Rosenfeld, the guard who shot himself was a paramilitary policeman and had been assigned to a security patrol at the airport.
The area police commander, Nissim Mor, said police were investigating the incident to determine if the officer had intended to commit suicide, or if he had accidentally discharged his weapon. “His mission was to secure an area to prevent people from reaching the ceremony,” he said.
And a secondary WTF? moment, causing yours truly to laugh, was the “two women soldiers” who fainted after witnessing this dude’s death. Jaysus. A helluva lot of help they’ll be to their unit, eh?
Right. The body falls, a shot rings out after the fact, and its a suicide. I don’t know about this one, sounds like something from a Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy scenario.
Events like these are going to give a whole new definition to “suicide.”
@Ey Pookie, nice to see ya here again. Missed u.