The sharp escalation of serious crimes in the Stockholm area in recent weeks has caused the police to initiate a special event to manage and break the conflict situations that are described as ongoing between several different criminal networks at the same time.
– You blow up and shoot to force each other forward, said commanding officer Hanna Paradis at a press conference at lunchtime on Friday.
Later, on Friday evening, there were reports of two more suspicious shootings, first one at an apartment building in Fruängen in southern Stockholm and then one in Solna – where a man died.
The number of attempted murders goes in waves
According to Gunnar Appelgren, crime commissioner and expert on gang crime, the violence we are seeing right now is due to the fact that we are at the top of a so-called wave.
– We have looked at murders and attempted murders in Stockholm between 2010 and 2020. There we see that the violence and attempts to murder each other go in waves. Canadian research says the same, he says, continuing:
– So right now we are on the crest of a wave and it is these conflicts that are driving the violence. The more conflicts we have at the same time, the bigger this wave crest will be, which will then strike fear into residents and those who work in the area.
On the night of Friday, there was also another bombing – the tenth in Sweden just since the turn of the year. According to Appelgren, there is a difference in how exactly explosions affect society compared to shootings.
Watch the gang expert explain how blasts affect society in the clip above.