The perpetrator of an attack that killed two officers at a police station in western Türkiye has been caught and his connections are currently being investigated, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Monday.
A 16-year-old high-school student attacked a police station in western Izmir province on Monday with a shotgun, killing two police officers, officials said.
Izmir province Governor Süleyman Elban said two other police officers and a civilian were wounded in the attack in the Balçova district of Izmir, Türkiye's third largest city.
The assailant was arrested and the motive was under investigation, Elban said at the scene.
In his address at an opening ceremony of the 2025-2026 school year in Istanbul, Erdoğan offered his condolences over the loss of lives and wished a swift recovery to the wounded officers.
"The murder suspect is a 16-year-old who lives on this street. He has no criminal record or previous arrests for any crime," Elban told the private NTV television and other media at the scene, saying the teenager was "apprehended with injuries."
The assailant first shot and killed a police officer who was standing guard in front of the station. The second victim was a police chief inspector who was killed in an ensuing clash, Elban said.
"We saw plenty of empty shotgun shells ... and there were many cartridges" of unused ammunition, he added, saying the suspect had used "a shotgun his father bought 10 years ago."
The DHA news agency said the assailant had used "a long-barreled gun," while NTV described the weapon as a "pump-action shotgun."
It was not immediately clear why the station was attacked.
Footage posted by the Gerçek Gündem news website showed mobile phone video of a person in a balaclava, a black top and pale trousers jogging along the pavement carrying a rifle and then entering a building.
Another widely published clip showed the alleged attacker lying on the pavement being attended by paramedics.
He appeared to be conscious, but the back of his trousers was covered with blood, and multiple bullet casings were lying on the ground.
A third clip showed a group of civilians helping to manhandle the suspect into a police van.
Police immediately fanned out across the area, imposing tight security measures, media reports said.
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç said Izmir's chief public prosecutor had opened an investigation involving an eight-strong team of prosecutors in a post on X, where many ministers denounced the attack and sent condolences to the families of the victims.
In recent years, Türkiye has witnessed several attacks targeting police and government facilities.
In February 2024, two members of the far-left terrorist group DHKP-C opened fire at a police checkpoint outside Istanbul’s Çağlayan Courthouse, wounding six people. One later died of injuries. Security forces killed both assailants at the scene.
In April 2023, an unidentified gunman opened fire with a machine gun on the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) district office in Adana, southern Türkiye. The assailant, who fired 12 shots at the building, was quickly detained. No injuries were reported.
In September 2022, two PKK-linked women attacked a police guesthouse in Mersin with rifles before detonating explosives, killing themselves and leaving one officer dead and another wounded. Just a month earlier, a suspected Daesh sympathizer stabbed two officers outside a government office in Istanbul’s Silivri district; both survived after the assailant was shot and detained.
