[7] Two members of the YDG-H shot and killed two police officers and fled down the Yenikapı street, where Tahir Elçi was holding the press conference beside the "Four-legged Minaret" of the Sheikh Matar Mosque.

As the YDG-H militants ran down the street and past the scene of the press conference, police officers opened fire on them.

[8] The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) called the shooting a "planned assassination," and protests erupted in Turkey after Elçi's killing.

[4][3] The HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş claimed in his interview on IMC TV that according to their investigators, the bullet which killed Tahir Elçi was fired by a Turkish police officer.

They also point out no medical check was carried on Elçi for 10 minutes after being shot, and none of the policemen involved were ever questioned or debriefed by Turkish authorities, despite the need to do so.