Tartu shocked by double shooting

The normally quiet university town of Tartu has in recent weeks seen two brutal robberies in which a shop clerk was shot dead and another critically wounded.

The police have not yet established a positive connection between the crimes and have made no arrests, despite massive operations in which hundreds of shop employees were questioned and dozens of locations associated with the drug trade were combed.

On the afternoon of April 11 an unknown assailant wearing dark clothes and a ski cap entered a family-owned confectionery store on Riia Street, one of the town's busiest.

The criminal slammed the door, proceeded hastily to the counter, drew a handgun and shot the clerk, a 22-year-old woman, in the face.

The surviving victim saw another man enter shortly after the shot was fired.

The two spoke in Russian, according to a police statement. Having snatched the small cash register with some 700 kroons ($40) and the victim's cell-phone, the attacker and his companion escaped through the back door.

The heavily bleeding clerk was able to gather strength and crawl to a neighboring store for help. She was taken to an emergency ward and, after lengthy surgery, is now in stable condition, yet the bullet could not be safely removed and will stay in the victim's neck, doctors say.

On the evening of March 31 a similar robbery took place in a small store on Aleksandri Street where an unknown assailant shot dead the clerk and made off with some 1,000 kroons.

Soon afterwards, customers found the victim's body lying behind the counter and alerted the police. The 51-year-old woman had been shot in the head and died instantly, but other details of the brutal attack are vague.

A massive police operation was launched after the second bloody assault. Dozens of officers combed hundreds of small shops all over the town, questioning employees for possible hints and warning of the possibility of more similar attacks.

Many leads were gathered, including a security camera video which appeared to show the two suspects climbing stairs in an unnamed building. A photograph of the suspected gunman was issued as well.

A week later, the police said they had raided dozens of locations connected with drug trading or consumption, as well as bunkers and other suspicious sites.

No suspects were found, but officers said they had gathered some information of interest.

Last week, Estonian Police Chief Harry Tuul decided to send a support group of 12 security police officers to temporarily patrol the streets of Tartu.

Investigators have so far refused to draw a definite connection between the crimes, uncommon for the university town of some 90,000, where a significant proportion of the inhabitants are students and employees of academic or research institutions.

Tartu police statistics show one murder and one case of life-threatening bodily injury during the first two months of 2002.

"The whole thing is really unbelievable," said Allan Kaldoja, a law student at Tartu University.

"You'd expect this, say, in police soaps but it's so quiet here, we sometimes even don't lock the doors."

Authorities have said the suspects were most likely wandering criminals, possibly from impoverished northeastern Estonia.

Many previous crimes, notably thefts, have previously been found to have been carried out by such "guests" - often drug addicts from the capital Tallinn or the northeast.

A previous atrocity shook Tartu last April when three people, including the acting head of the local military school were gunned down in a suburban apartment.

According to the police the three probably surprised an apartment thief who, in panic, sprayed the room with bullets and ran. The assailant has yet to be apprehended.