I will start from the end to the beginning.

Regarding Zak/Zackie, it ended badly and unfairly, with a crushing defeat.

Today, Greek society learned that one can kill a person (who is different from the majority) in broad daylight, on camera, and after a judicial saga lasting a few years, escape with a mild to moderate consequence for oneself. It has also been acknowledged that the victim’s behavior contributed in such a way as to serve as a mitigating factor in the murder he suffered.

Greek society also learned that if you regularly pay your taxes, have a family, and your daughter is studying to become a doctor, this works in your favour if you murder someone in broad daylight, on camera, who did not threaten you in any way—and this is captured on video. Besides, you’re not in the habit of murdering people. The worst can happen to anyone, as they say.

Furthermore, Greek society also saw, if they paid further attention, that nothing happened. Three hundred people came down today, so maybe, after all, Zak/Zackie was also to blame, and “Defendant 1” and “Defendant 2” are unfairly being troubled for everything that has happened.

At the same time, around us, we see restrained to outright cries of victory, as well as particularly moderate analyses that reassure us. Everything went well because the perpetrators were “unanimously guilty.”

Public outcry over Zak Kostopoulos’s murder case verdict: ‘Go to hell’ shouted in court

Before these events, we saw documentaries, songs, books, and papers, speeches, and all sorts of exploitation of the name Zak/Zackie. We also saw Zak/Zackie as memes, on t-shirts, stamps, stencils, graffiti, and murals.

Before these, there were people who found the above exceptional ideas, either for their career in some cases, or (altruistically) for the preservation of memory in others.

Before these, we saw the police officers involved in the murder of Zak/Zackie acquitted.

Before these, we saw concepts such as grief, mourning, trauma, vulnerability, and others come to the forefront and cover everything. Up close, the institution of family and friends, the necessary “brushstroke” of normalcy, in the big picture to prove what we all saw with our own eyes.

Before these, we had spontaneous marches day and night, multifaceted actions, trans and drag queen activism, a bit of chaos, and a community in conflict about how things should proceed.

Before these, we had a central slogan: “Anger and sorrow, Zackie will be missed.”

A few chose to focus on anger, and overwhelmingly, most on sorrow. Not everyone knew then that they were doing this, they did not know what it meant.

Before these, we had an invasion in the foreground of a specific community of people who saw that one of their convicted individuals was murdered. Along came various individuals who rushed to declare themselves friends, acquaintances, buddies, and many other attributes because they felt they would soon be of use to them.

Above all, on September 21, 2018, Spyridon Dimopoulos and Athanasios Hortarias and police officers Rousakis, Alexandris, Seferis, and Tsobanis murdered Zak Kostopoulos on Gladstone Street, Omonia. It’s noon. The murder was captured on video.

*Nikos Vasilopoulos is a historian and theologian.