Police got bad tipoff, could massacre have been prevented? Cetinje shooter was killing people for half an hour

Photo: Rina

At the time when it was reported that a shooting had occurred in a tavern in Cetinje, Montenegro, and that several people were wounded, there were at most nine police officers on duty in that town.

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The police claim that they received a wrong tip, which most likely enabled the killer, Aco Martinovic, to go on and kill 12 fellow citizens over a period of half an hour, using a pistol he did not have a license for.

Not enough has been done regarding regulations, procedures, equipping and staffing the police with a sufficient number of officers, it what's now being said.

When the local police received a call at 5:26 pm on Wednesday that there had been a shooting in a tavern in Cetinje, and that several people were wounded, three police patrols, an operative inspector, an officer on duty and an on-duty commander were deployed, the acting officer, director of the Police Administration, Lazar Scepanovic, said yesterday responding to a question from a Vijesti reporter.

This means that on the first day of January, the Montenegrin capital was policed by a maximum of nine people, two of who were on patrol - which is sometimes not the case.

Scepanovic said that it was planned for reinforcements to arrive in Cetinje from 6 pm, but that this was arranged before the tragedy.

He chronologically listed the sequence of events during which 12 Cetinje residents lost their lives and four were seriously wounded in just over 30 minutes, from 5:21 pm to 5:57 pm, Vijesti writes.

The mass shooter, 45-year-old Aco Martinovic, committed suicide six hours after he left behind his first victims in the Velestovo tavern in Cetinje, whom he killed with a pistol that he possessed illegally.

Scepanovic explained that at 5:26 pm, the on-duty  Cetinje police service was informed by phone that a firearm had been used in a tavern, claiming that the information was incomplete, which is why two patrols and an officer were sent to a wrong location, to Bajice.

Photo: Telegraf.rs

Scepanovic also said that five minutes later, when the policemen arrived in Bajice, they saw that it was not the scene of the incident, and that the investigation established that (the shooter) had already killed four people and wounded another three - as the police were deployed to check on the report.

According to police data, the shooter killed Branislav Mudresa (60), Radomir Markovic (70), Milos Martinovic (39) and Mirko Vuletic (45) from 5:21 pm to 5:24 pm,, and this happened in the Velestovo tavern, and wounded M.V., born in 1984. A.M., born in 1983, and D.K., born in 1985.

Scepanovic also told the press conference that the killer, the four killed and the three wounded were in the Velestovo tavern during the day and that they knew each other.

He added that the police determined by examining surveillance footage that when the patrols headed towards Bajice, Martinovic had already gone to the Humci settlement, where he drove his car and parked in front of the house of his (next) victims, his best-man's family.

The head of the Montenegrin police explained that Aco Martinovic first killed Joso Otasevic (55) there, who was in the house of Marko Martinovic, whose twin brother had just shot and killed in the Velestovo tavern. After killing Ostasevic in the yard of the Otasevic household, he killed Marko Martinovic, and wounded his wife M.M. (45).

Photo: Tanjug/AP

"Who managed, although wounded, to run away from her house with a child in her arms, to the house of her next door neighbors," Scepanovic said of the woman.

Continuing his murderous spree, Aco Martinovic went to the parents' house of the Martinovic brothers he had already shot dead - and killed their father and mother - Radovan (70) and Radmila Martinovic (63).

Investigators found Radovan Martinovic dead in an armchair in the living room, and his wife in the hallway of the house...

Scepanovic next said that the police arrived at the first scene at 5:39 pm - the Velestovo tavern, and that six minutes later they were informed that a murder had been committed in the Humci neighborhood, and a minute later that the Vuletic brothers were dead - 9-year-old Vukan and his 5 years older brother Jovan.

The two are the youngest innocent victims of the mass murder committed by Aco Martinovic.

"At another location, where four people were killed and one person was wounded, the police did not receive a report, but they went to a third location where two children were killed, and that report was filed at 5:46 pm.  During this time, (Aco) Martinovic, as it was later established, arrived on foot in front of the Martinovics' house, and went to Donji Kraj no. 7, where he killed his sister," he said.

The victim has been identified as 42-year-old Zorica Vuletic.

"After this report, the police received three reports that the perpetrator was located in three different locations - the Medovina settlement, near the Gymnasium and on the Boulevard near the Obeliks fast food place. The killer, after the fourth location, went to the fifth, where he killed D.D., born in 1973, which was reported at 5:57 pm to the on-duty service of the Cetinje police," Scepanovic said.

According to unofficial information obtained by Vijesti, Aco Martinovic then went in front of his friend's house, and when the friend's wife Dragana Draskovic opened the door for him - he shot her dead.

Yesterday, the Montenegrin police did not state what the motive behind this mass shooting was, but clarified only that the spree was preceded by a verbal conflict in the tavern, after which Aco Martinovic left the building and a few minutes later returned armed and started the massacre.

(Telegraf.rs)