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Police officers return to Christiania after violent scenes

A police raid on the Pusher Street market in Copenhagen resulted in violent confrontations on Thursday.

Police officers return to Christiania after violent scenes
Pusher Street earlier this week. Photo: Mathias Øgendal/Ritzau Scanpix

Law enforcers returned on Friday to again raid the market, which sells marijuana, for the seventh consecutive day.

“Things went smoothly and calmly,” said Deputy Chief Superintendent Lars Ole-Karlsen, who leads the special unit tasked with the raids.

That is in contrast to the violent scenes that accompanied Thursday’s raids.

The flare-up began around 4:30pm when police tried to arrest four suspected hash traders, Ritzau reports.

Police say that around 100 people were involved in the disturbance, in which six officers were hit by rocks, resulting in one receiving hospital treatment.

Up to 30 masked individuals later confronted a police patrol on the nearby Refshalevej road.

The group was reportedly armed with blunt weapons and clubs, and police officers returned to their vehicle out of concern for their own safety.

“We have not yet been able apprehend the culprits,” Ole-Karlsen said.

A video recorded during the earlier confrontation, showing violent action by the police officers, was published on social media on Thursday.

In the video, an unarmed woman can be seen being pushed hard in the chest by an officer, resulting in her falling into a bicycle.

The incident can be seen around halfway through the clip below.

Police have encouraged the woman to contact them in relation to the incident.

“I have seen the video and it doesn’t look good. We must naturally look into the woman’s role, and if she is an unconnected passer-by, that is not good at all,” Ole-Karlsen said.

Stalls on Pusher Street commonly sell cannabis and related products and are regularly raided in police clampdowns on Christiania, an area within Copenhagen originally established by hippie squatters in 1971.

Since the end of last week, police have increased their efforts in a crackdown against the marijuana market.

READ ALSO: After five days of raids, Christiania hash traders stop rebuilding market

POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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