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Three injured in ‘gang-related’ shootout

Three people were seriously injured in what police suspect may have been a gang-related shooting in Norrköping in eastern Sweden on Tuesday night.

Published: 29 June 2011 08:34 CEST

Police made several arrests following the incident, which took place at a restaurant in the city centre.

“A number of people have been detained and we’re interviewing a number of different people who have information to provide,” Anne Asp of the Östergötland County police told the TT news agency.

A dispute between two gangs precipitated the shooting. Two men were shot, while a third man was stabbed in the chest.

A 31-year-old man from Malmö was taken to Linköping university hospital with life-threatening injuries. The two other victims are said to be in serious, but stable condition.

Police remain tight lipped about exactly how many people were arrested following the shooting and what sort of connections they may have to the victims.

Nor are they willing to comment on reports that the shootout was a settling of scores between two rival criminal gangs.

“I can’t go into that now. We’re not finished with all of our interrogations yet,” said Asp.

However, duty officer Ronny Dahlqvist of the Östergötland County police confirmed that police believe gangs were involved.

“This is gang-related and we know in which circles we should look,” he told the Expressen newspaper.

According to eye witnesses, one of the shooting victims had a shirt with the emblem of the Outlaws motorcycle gang.

Meanwhile, another police source told Expressen that they believe the rival Black Cobra criminal gang may have carried out the attack.

The results of the police’s forensic investigation are expected to be completed by Wednesday morning. Later in the morning, investigators are expected to meet with prosecutors about the case.

“We’ll be working all night and we’ll continue tomorrow. We’re devoting all our resources to this, plus a little more,” said Asp.

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US criminologist lauds Malmö for anti-gang success

Johan Nilsson/TT

In an online seminar with Malmö mayor Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said implementing his Group Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy had gone extremely smoothly in the city.

“What really stands out about the Malmö experience is contrary to most of the places we work,” he said. “They made their own assessment of their situation on the ground, they looked at the intervention logic, they decided it made sense, and then, in a very rapid, focused and business-like fashion, they figured out how to do the work.”

He said that this contrasted with police and other authorities in most cities who attempt to implement the strategy, who tend to end up “dragging their feet”, “having huge amounts of political infighting”, and coming up with reasons why their city is too different from other cities where the strategy has been a success.

Malmö’s Sluta Skjut (Stop Shooting) pilot scheme was extended to a three-year programme this January, after its launch in 2018 coincided with a reduction in the number of shootings and explosions in the city.

“We think it’s a good medicine for Malmö for breaking the negative trend that we had,” Malmö police chief Stefan Sintéus said, pointing to the fall from 65 shootings in 2017 to 20 in 2020, and in explosions from 62 in 2017 to 17 in 2020.

A graph from Malmö police showing the reduction in the number of shootings from 2017 to 2020. Graph: Malmö Police

A graph from Malmö police showing the reduction in the number of explosions in the city between 2017 and 2020. Graph: Malmö Police

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In their second evaluation of the programme, published last month, Anna-Karin Ivert, Caroline Mellgren, and Karin Svanberg, three criminologists from Malmö University, reported that violent crime had declined significantly since the program came into force, and said that it was possible that the Sluta Skjut program was partly responsible, although it was difficult to judge exactly to what extent.

The number of shootings had already started to decline before the scheme was launched, and in November 2019, Sweden’s national police launched Operation Rimfrost, a six-month crackdown on gang crime, which saw Malmö police reinforced by officers from across Sweden.

But Kennedy said he had “very little sympathy” for criminologists critical of the police’s decision to launch such a massive operation at the same time as Sluta Skjut, making it near impossible to evaluate the programme.

“Evaluation is there to improve public policy, public policy is not there to provide the basis for for sophisticated evaluation methodology,” he argued.

“When people with jobs to do, feel that they need to do things in the name of public safety, they should follow their professional, legal and moral judgement. Not doing something to save lives, because it’s going to create evaluation issues, I think, is simply privileging social science in a way that it doesn’t deserve.”

US criminologist David Kennedy partaking in the meeting. Photo: Richard Orange

Sluta Skjut has been based around so-called ‘call-ins’, in which known gang members on probation are asked to attend meetings, where law enforcement officials warn them that if shootings and explosions continue, they and the groups around them will be subject to intense focus from police.

At the same time, social workers and other actors in civil society offer help in leaving gang life.

Of the 250-300 young men who have been involved in the project, about 40 have been sent to prison, while 49 have joined Malmö’s ‘defector’ programme, which helps individuals leave gangs.

Kennedy warned not to focus too much on the number of those involved in the scheme who start to work with social services on leaving gang life.

“What we find in in practice is that most of the impact of this approach doesn’t come either because people go to prison or because they take services and leave gang life,” he said.

“Most of the impact comes from people simply putting their guns down and no longer being violent.”

“We think of the options as continuing to be extremely dangerous, or completely turning one’s life around. That’s not realistic in practice. Most of us don’t change that dramatically ever in our lives.”

He stressed the importance of informal social control in his method, reaching those who gang members love and respect, and encouraging them to put pressure on gang members to abstain from gun violence.

“We all care more about our mothers than we care about the police, and it turns out that if you can find the guy that this very high risk, very dangerous person respects – literally, you know, little old ladies will go up to him and get his attention and tell him to behave himself. And he will.”

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