School vice principal fatally shot outside home in Kocaeli

KOCAELİ

The vice principal of a high school in the northwestern city of Kocaeli was shot and killed outside his home by a reported 17-year-old suspect early on June 26.

The suspect remains at large as police intensify their search efforts.

Mahir Çoğaç, 45, was preparing to leave for work around 9 a.m. when he was attacked.

The suspect, reportedly a 17-year-old, approached and fired a pistol as Çoğaç was in his car and fastening his seatbelt, striking him in the head, according to eyewitnesses.

Emergency medical teams and police responded to the scene. Despite paramedics' efforts and transport to the hospital, Çoğaç succumbed to death.

Security camera footage from a nearby business revealed the suspect had been loitering near Çoğaç's residence for about an hour before the shooting.

Kocaeli Governor Seddar Yavuz released a statement after the incident.

"Our security and intelligence units are carrying out all kinds of meticulous work to get the murder suspect," it read.

Satı Helvacı, who operates a tea shop in Çoğaç's building, witnessed the suspect earlier in the morning.

"At 7:30 a.m., a young boy in a white shirt was pacing around here... Half an hour later, I heard a gunshot," he recounted.

This event comes in the wake of another recent incident in Istanbul's Eyüpsultan district, where a school principal was killed by an expelled student.

The murder led to a one-day nationwide teachers' strike and calls for stricter measures to protect educators.

Education Minister Yusuf Tekin has since announced plans to implement a new professional code that would increase penalties for violence against educators.

Tekin also expressed the ministry’s request that these acts be considered grounds for immediate arrest, “thereby closing the path for those who commit these acts to be tried without detention."