Posted on 4/18/2004, 5:45:46 PM by joan
Former Topeka City Council member Beth Mechler was expected to survive a bullet wound suffered Saturday when a Jordanian police officer opened fire for an unknown reason on her and other international U.N. police officers at a prison in Kosovo.
Mechler's husband, Topeka police Lt. Randy Listrom, said his wife was in a hospital intensive care unit recovering from a wound to her femoral artery involving the groin. Mechler and other U.N. officers were "ambushed" while driving away on their first day of an assignment to Kosovo to work at the prison, Listrom said.
Authorities said a Jordanian police officer opened fire on the group of international U.N. police at a prison in Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbia-Montenegro, killing two Americans before he was killed when officers returned fire. Ten American officers and an Austrian were wounded.
Listrom said his wife was riding in the same car as the two slain Americans.
Mechler, 44, works for DynCorp, a private company that trains police, corrections and judicial officers in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, East Timor and Liberia. Listrom said his wife sought to serve her country by accepting the assignment.
Listrom, a spokesman for the Topeka Police Department, preceded his wife in attending DynCorp training earlier this year, but returned to Topeka when there were more candidates on hand than slots available. Listrom said he had spoken to his wife by phone on Saturday.
Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell said Mechler was taking a one-year leave of absence from her job with the corrections department. Since 1993, Mechler had worked as a special enforcement officer who focused on finding parole violators. She was a Topeka City Council member from 1991 to 1995.
Mechler was among a group of correctional officers -- 21 Americans, two Turks and an Austrian -- who the AP reported were leaving the detention center after a day of training when shooting erupted. They came under fire from at least one of a group of Jordanians on guard at the prison, said Neeraj Singh, a U.N. spokesman.
The officers shot back in a gun battle that lasted about 10 minutes. It wasn't immediately clear what prompted the Jordanian to shoot.
"As far as we know, there was no communication between the officer who fired and the group of victims," Singh said, adding that investigators looking into the incident were questioning four Jordanian officers.
The Jordanian government expressed regret for the incident and said it also was investigating the shooting, Jordan's official Petra agency reported. The statement identified the Jordanian officer as Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali.
Kosovska Mitrovica, the city where the shootout occurred, has long been the scene of ethnic violence between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, including riots that broke out a month ago, killing 19 and injuring 900.
Kosovska Mitrovica is divided between ethnic Albanians on the southern side of the Ibar River and Serbs, who live in the northern part of the city, 25 miles from the capital, Pristina.
"It is absolutely too early to draw any conclusions with regard to what happened there," Stefan Feller, the head of the United Nations police, told AP Television News minutes after visiting the prison shooting site.
The body of a police officer, covered with what looked like a jacket, lay for hours in the yard of the prison compound where the shooting occurred. Police officers sealed off the area with yellow tape.
Singh said police were investigating circumstances of the shootout.
Milan Ivanovic, a doctor in the hospital in the Serb-held part of Kosovska Mitrovica, told AP that five American officers and one Austrian officer were being treated at his hospital. It wasn't clear where the other wounded officers were being treated.
"Their wounds are predominantly in the chest and abdomen," Ivanovic said. "They were caused by firearms and possibly explosive devices."
Kosovo became a U.N. protectorate in 1999, after NATO launched a 78-day air war to stop former President Slobodan Milosevic from cracking down on ethnic Albanians seeking independence.
There are some 3,500 U.N. police officers serving in Kosovo alongside a 6,000-strong local force.
Listrom said Saturday it wasn't yet clear whether he would travel to Kosovo to be with his wife.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Authorities said a Jordanian police officer opened fire on the group of international U.N. police at a prison in Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbia-Montenegro, killing two Americans before he was killed when officers returned fire. Ten American officers and an Austrian were wounded.
Listrom said his wife was riding in the same car as the two slain Americans.
Opening heavy fire on cars has been a common way of killing in Kosovo these past few years.
What part of a woman's body is her Kosovo?
The woman is very lucky to be alive. You can bleed out in nothing flat from a tear to the femoral artery. Someone who knew what they were doing got to her very, very quickly.
Body of the story has the information on the others hurt.
This story is very fishy....what's going on over there?????
FOX News needs to send a reporter over there. It's a shame they haven't done so already.
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PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -
Investigators searched for evidence and interviewed eyewitnesses Sunday in an attempt to find out why a Jordanian U.N. police officer opened fire on U.S. correctional officers in Kosovo, killing two.
The Jordanian officer was also killed in the shootout Saturday at the U.N.-run prison in the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica.
The shooting was the latest shock for the U.N. mission in the province, which is still grappling with the fallout from violent clashes last month between ethnic Albanians and Serbs that killed 19 and injured more than 900 in Kosovska Mitrovica.
"The shooting struck a huge blow at the very idea of peacekeeping," said Alex Anderson, the Kosovo project director of International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank. It will "affect the perception of the peacekeepers among the population."
In Belgrade, the Serbian Orthodox Church said the shooting "proves that the U.N. does not control the situation."
The church had earlier criticized the U.N. mission for failing to protect Serbs and Serb churches during the recent riots in Kosovska Mitrovica.
Kosovo became a U.N. protectorate in 1999, after NATO launched a 78-day air war to stop former President Slobodan Milosevic from cracking down on ethnic Albanians seeking independence.
The 3,500-strong U.N. police force includes 450 U.S. officers, most of whom work for Dyncorp, a private company that trains police, corrections and judicial officers who work in places such as Kosovo and Iraq. The U.N. police force works alongside 6,000 local police officers.
It is still unclear what sparked the shooting between officers from the police and correctional units of the U.N. mission. Ten Americans and one Austrian were also injured in the violence.
Sunday, U.N. investigators went door-to-door in apartment buildings overlooking the prison compound, interviewing witnesses.
Officials denied rumors that a quarrel about the war in Iraq had sparked the gun battle.
"As far as we know, there was no communication between the officer who fired and the group of victims," said Neeraj Singh, a U.N. spokesman.
But a U.S. police officer serving with the U.N. mission told The Associated Press that the shooting was "clearly an attack against Americans." The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not elaborate.
The gunbattle began as three U.N. vehicles carrying 21 U.S. correctional officers, two Turkish officers and one Austrian were leaving the prison, which was guarded by five Jordanian special police unit officers, officials said.
The correctional officers had arrived in Kosovo just 10 days earlier and were training at the prison.
At least one Jordanian officer, identified by Jordan's government as Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali, started firing at the convoy, said Stefan Feller, the head of the U.N. police in Kosovo.
The other officers returned fire, and in the ensuing 10-minute gunbattle, two female American officers and Ali were killed, he said.
The names of the dead Americans have not been released.
The four other Jordanian police officers at the prison were detained following the shooting, officials said, and authorities have requested that their diplomatic immunity be lifted so they can be interrogated by investigators.
One seriously wounded U.S. officer, who has not been identified, was transported to neighboring Macedonia for brain surgery, said Maj. Chris Cole, a spokesman for the U.S. peacekeepers in Kosovo.
The other injured U.S. officers were being treated at in Kosovo. The Austrian officer was to be flown home Sunday for treatment.
Jordan's government, in a statement carried by the Petra news agency, expressed regret for the incident and stressed that it is following up on the investigation to uncover details of what had taken place.
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