The Calm Before the Storm: A Tale of Gun Violence in Stockholm
It was supposed to be a peaceful evening in a Stockholm suburb, but all of a sudden, the sound of gunfire shattered the calm. A teenage gunman, armed with an AK-47, fired 15 bullets into the home of a terrified mother and her young child. The incident was captured on video, showing the front door of the residence being sprayed with bullets, as empty cartridge cases bounced down the stairwell.
The Fear in the Air
The attack, which appears to have been a scare tactic, has left the residents of the suburb shaken. A mother who lives in the same block spoke to MailOnline, describing the incident as “crazy.” She added that “it wasn’t a small gun. It was a Kalashnikov. It is terrible that attacks like this are normalized.”
The Rise of Drug Gang Violence
Unfortunately, incidents like this have become more common in Sweden in recent times. The country has seen at least 15 homes being sprayed with bullets and a similar number of bombings in the last six weeks as drug gangs, primarily from immigrant communities, battle for control of the streets. The flat that was targeted in this latest attack was the home of the ex-girlfriend of a well-known rapper, but she is no longer with him.
Preventing the Worst
Despite the rising trend of gun violence in the country, the police have been working hard to prevent more serious crimes from taking place. Just an hour after the apartment shooting, they managed to prevent a potential murder in a nearby neighborhood. Officers carrying out surveillance on a suspect linked to a local gang were said to have begun chasing a suspicious car. The pursuit ended with the car crashing and two boys aged 13 and 14 being arrested after automatic weapons and masks were found inside. A man who fled from the car was also arrested and is now in custody on suspicion of aggravated weapons offenses and of preparing for murder.
The Calm After the Storm
The night was far from over as another man was shot dead in the street beside a car park at the Huvudsta Centrum shopping center, just outside the Kebabkhan Kurdistan restaurant. Sadly, Sweden’s organized crime problem has been growing in recent years and even reached London with the murder of Flamur Beqiri on the doorstep of his home in front of his wife and child. In another tragedy, a 15-year-old migrant was shot and killed in a sushi restaurant in a shopping center south of Stockholm. Swedish police have not commented on the motive for this murder, but it is a reminder of the escalating gun violence in the country.
