Unique footage from the police killings in Malexander – “never shown before”

The birds are chirping and the sun is shining on May 28, 1999 in Malexander. On several small country roads, police are stationed to control the cars that pass. A short distance away, their two colleagues lie shot dead behind a police car and in a ditch. Everything is captured on film by a photographer from SVT.

– I perceived that many police officers were very scared, and on full alert. They were poorly equipped and very affected by what happened to their colleagues, says Lasse Lampers who spoke to many who were there that day.

The police murders in Malexander

Shot at another police officer

A robbery had taken place at the Östgöta Enskilda bank some distance away in Kisa, and before the murder of the police officers, the robbers had shot at another police officer during their escape. In retrospect, it has turned out that the robbers were just kilometers from where the police officers were checking cars.

– All the cars that appeared could have belonged to the robbers, and there could have been a confrontation, says Lasse Lampers.

He thinks the most remarkable thing is that SVT’s photographer and reporter were allowed to stand at one of the roadblocks, when the robbers were only kilometers away.

Eight minutes of footage from the murder scene

For the program Kriminalarkivet: The police murder in Malexander, Lasse Lampers unearthed raw material from the day of the murder. He then got hold of eight minutes of filmed material from the murder scene, some of which had never been published before. This is probably because the blankets are lifted off the bodies for the technicians to do their job, and so the camera captures the officers naked on the street.

– We had to handle this material in a sensible way, we didn’t want them to go astray. But we think the historical value is to capture the mood of this day, says Lasse Lampers.

See the Crime Archive: Police murders in Malexander at SVT Play or Thursdays at 21:30 in SVT 1.