On Saturday, in Farsta, south of Stockholm, a shooter sowed death with an automatic weapon meant for wars. Now anyone can be in the firing line, says Nordic correspondent Pirjo Auvinen.
Sweden’s gang violence is taking on increasingly incomprehensible features.
In Farsta, people were on the move in the evening because it was a beautiful and warm day off. The school’s spring festival would be on Tuesday and the children would be able to enjoy a much-needed vacation.
Farsta’s children’s holiday got a sad edge when automatic gun shots started ringing near the entrance of the metro station. There were more than 20 shots.
A 15-year-old boy who was on his way to Tivoli died at the crime scene, a 45-year-old man died this morning. A 15-year-old boy is still being treated. A 63-year-old woman was hit in the knee apparently by a projectile that bounced off the wall.
In an interview with Swedish radio the woman says that she was coming from the subway and was removing her bicycle when she heard 5-6 shots. He found his knee bleeding, but was able to take cover around a corner.
It was later found out at the hospital that he had survived with minimal injuries considering the situation. For Dagens Nyheter the woman says she was shaking from stress when she got home. In the radio interview, he says that the shooting incident was not the first in his neighborhood, because earlier a young man shot another person in the head near his apartment.
Shortly after the shootings, the police arrested two men in their twenties who are old acquaintances of the police, but not for such serious crimes, as a result of a car chase. On Sunday, they were arrested on suspicion of the murders.
The police have no information about the motive for the shootings. Nor is it about whether one of the victims was a target. However, all the victims were hardly on the automatic weapon user’s kill list.
Now, gang violence has reached such proportions that anyone going to the subway may inadvertently find themselves in the line of fire. Young shooters either don’t realize the consequences of their actions or don’t care about them. The shooting at the busy entrance of the metro station proves that.
Superintendent of Police Anders Thornborg says for Aftonbladet, that gangs recruit three new members a day, or a thousand a year. According to the police chief, there are currently 10 gang showdowns going on in Stockholm, but there are shootings all over the country. According to his estimate, armed gangs include around 30,000 members.
Swedish government ministers assure that they will tighten their grip on gangs, but it will take time. However, the patience of ordinary Swedes is sorely tested, because since Christmas Eve alone, there have been 77 serious cases of violence in the Stockholm region, according to Dagens Nyheter, including 49 shootings or stabbings, 25 explosions and two fires.