Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Turf wars for control of the drug trade, driven by an influx of guns, personal vendettas and a pool of available youths, many from marginalized migrant communities, have resulted in a gun-homicide rate approximately 2½ times the European average, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.22 maj 2023
first aired in 2022, Dateline investigates Sweden’s rising gun violence and how it is fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment. With gangs and drugs driving the bloodshed, we explore the radical solutions proposed that could change the Scandinavian nation forever.
sweden
Often seen as a postcard of neutrality,
happiness and tolerance.
but inrecent years
this seemingly peaceful nation has been rocked by gun violence.
last year, there were 342 shootings.
per head, hat’s more shootings than anywhere else in Europe.and this year is pn par to be the deadliest one so far.
we investigate what’s behind this gun crime epidemic.
and how it’s fueling anti- immigrant sentiment.
summer is almost here in sweden.
while many swedes are making the most of the long days by socialising and being outdoors,
another man uses it to pursue a unique hobby.an officer manager by day, by night mike documents crime scenes in the stockholm area.
just about a month ago, there was a guy shot dead right in there. just 50 meters from where mike parked his car. and it was gang related.
This image are from that crime scene.
mike feels a duty to record and share these crimes with the society
often ,he says. they don’t even make the news. crime statistics . in every way ,even if it’s stabbings or shootings or explosions, everything is increasing and that’s a scary development, in mikes opinion.and says ” we can’t close our eys to it”
mike gets tips-offs from facebook,news sites,and some of his 14,000 followers on Instagram
he´s think since the beginning of this year, he thinks he’s covered around maybe 25 to 30 shootings.since the beginning of this year.in january. and that’ just he ones he’s been covering himself.he hasen’t been to all of the actual shootings
were’ heading for skarpnäck where gun violence and the violence is increasing basically over the last couple of months.
to the right there, was a man in his twenties who got shot with several shots.this is the shopping centre of the area. broaddaylight.lots of people.
of the hundred of shootings in sweden last year,
many of them were in public spaces like this.
mike said, today,there’s no respect for a third party.you just go ahead if you want to kill someone it doesn’t matter if it’s in broad daylight or in the middle of a centrum.or it’s a lots of people around you.
by posting images of these different shootings on social media, mike’s point becomes clear.
swedish guncrime is out of control
malmö is one of sweden’s deadliest cities.
theres’ been 298 shootings here in the past seven years.
Ardavan is an emergency medicine specialist he’s treated countless gunshot wounds over the past decade
patient with gunshot wounds will be brought from the ambulance.a gunshot wound victim is classified as a trauma level one patient.
that means that everyone is down here and waiting for the patient. defenitly it’s a massive commitment of hospital recource.
because it’s not only resources from the emergency department but it’s resources from the hwole house, the whole hospital.
a lot of surgeries may be postponed,because all the resources afre focused on this gunshot wound. it can be anything from wounds to the extremities , usually the legs.which are not so serious to really serious wounds to the chest and to the head.
however ,more and more criminals are using bulletproof vests.
this protection has only made ardavan’s job harder. gang members are now shooting to kill.
this is an example of a gunshot wound to the head.
the bullet has come in into the left side of the brain,through the hole braine and stopped at the right side of the braine.
this is not survivable. partly because of the massive hemorrhage we are seeing.the bullet is still here.
we have a lot of air in the brain. a person with this kind of gunshot wound will unfortunately never come out from it alive.
Ardavan is not only a doctor,his also a criminologist,his family immigrated to sweden in the 90s.
he grew up in the very communities that now experiencing so much violence.
he said its heartbreaking to see communities which i myself have been a part of are today problem areas.
as a man who lives to save lives ardavan is worried about the young people involved in these crimes.
he says they are from that we in sweden call vulnerable areas.that is areas that are that have a high rate of immigrants usually, a high rate of unemployment, a low rate of education.and in my opinion that´s a major failure from sweden’s part.that has not been able to integrate these individuals properly to the sociaty.
gang crime like this is having a devastating impact.
Rosengård is malmö’s most notorious vulnerable area.At its peak,
there were 40 shootings in this suburb alone in one year.
for the past 40 years, Glen and his colleague stefan have ben policing this neighbourhood.
he says we’ ve got about a a hundred different nationalities living here in this area.wegot around 20, 000 inhabitants at all.
it’s estiamted that 90% of the population here are immigrants.
and one third are unemployed.
on this place in march 2017, a young guy , 23 years was shot to death by two killers, one with a kalashnikov, one with a handgun.
normally ,it’s a drug business ,that’sgone wrong in some way.but in some cases ,it’s about a girlfriend.
the drugs coming from the continent.sweden dont’ have any own production and usually it’s smuggled over the bridge from Denmark.
and it’s very common with cannabis ,but also heavy drugs like cocaine. cocaine is bery big. it’s a very big buisness for the gangs. they got a lot of money. and you have buyers from all over the southern part of sweden coming here.
its also a problem. because how can you persuade a young man that earns 5,000 euro per week to get a normal job?
drugs and the lure of cash is the main driver behind the violence.
göteborg, home to one of sweden’s longest-running turf was.
in 2015. three gang members
opened fire at a rival in a packed pub.two dead and 15 wounded.
this war is still raging today. it’s not only the police confronting the gangster.
Active mums.
“there have been many shootings,but particularly during summer and winter .when darkness falls they may be recruited by the gangs who want to hurt people.”
like most vulnerable areas,this community has a large immigrant population.high unemployment, and is knwon for drugs and gang violence.
three or four nights a week,these mothers set out to patrol the streets. looking for young men who might be involved or targets of these crimes.this group believes the community needs to lead the fight against drugs and gun crime.
the solution is community,and the swedish authorities must ake it seriously.many young people die every day.they have to spend money, more police , and customs.
so not just the police.parents must come out and see what thei children are doing out there.we need the parents to play their part.
this mothers and aunties all know young men caught up in the gang violence. but for Hiba these patrols are personal.
at just 16, elias was a good student with a bright future.
he was sitting here with friends.but he was gunned down in cold blood.
to date , no one has been convicted of elia’s murder.
people say it was perhaps the wrong person.
back in rosengård.glen and stefan belive they’ve found a way to reduce
the gang violence.”the program is called stop shooting.
“we need to identify who ispart of the criminal organisations that we have, the crimingal gangs. and then we address them.”
“and it’sa very clear message .if you or anyone in your group,shoot ,kill or is involved with any deadly violence.It will have consequences for your all.no matter who doesn’t.
and those consequences mean extreme scrutiny by the police and 12 other government enforcement agencies.including regular searches , prosecutions and seizing assets.
Glen says” were are very close to harassment,we’re taking their jewellery, because that’s money.we’re taking their drugs, because that’s money.theycannot own a car, because we will seize it, we try to make their lives as miserable as possible.
today ,glen is doing what’s called a notification police deter gang members with punishment.other government agencies in the program are ready to help them start a new life.
Rebecca is a social worker.
” so we sit down with them and we aske them ” what do you think you need to leave the criminal lifestyle? and then we see if we can meet those needs,many of them are between,22 and 28 so they are young men”
for safety they’ve enlisted the help of another police officer.they’re meeting with a young man who owes moeny to a gang and has threats on his life.
the last three years 40 persons have been moved,they have been relocated to another city. and also helped 85 others withing the city of malmö.
since the program began,shootings in malmö have decreased by two thirds.it´s now being rolled out in other gun crime hotspots across sweden.but to find out if it might work .
a gangster involved in armed crime is willing to talk if he’s garanteed his anonymity.
He doesn’t think that ” the program stop shooting ” in malmö could work .and refer the program as ” the snitch program ” instead. and that is what he’s seeing the program as.and says they are not snitches and police can go fuck themselves.and the cause of killing is about drugs, money ,power.
the first time he had to learn hoe to shoot was at the age of 13. he says they’re not ghetto blaster.
In america they hold the weapon like this .
and says that they know how to shoot and you move once the” pop, pop”
nowdays , you give a gun to a 15year old ,he does prison for children maximum three years for killing somebody.
and as people wearing bulletproof vest.he has answerfor that too.
“it doesnt help shit.because we aime at the head.why the fuck should you have a vest on, if you’re ready to kill somebody , you’re not going to shoot hem in the chest. you make it fast, in the head , boom.”
sweden, where record rates of gun crime have left authorities scrambling for solution.
and with an election coming up in september,its proving to be a defining election issue.
According to recent polls , 44 % of swedish voters, believe law and order is the most important political issue.
and one party says it’s offering a solution to the problem it saw coming years ago.
At the 2022 campaign launch of sweden democrats.jimmy åkesson ,ther charismatic leader of the party ,has moderated this group from a white nationalist outfit to a center-right populist powerhouse.
with most of the gun crime occruing within migrant communities åkesson is blaming immigration for the law and order problem,
” not a day goes by without us facing new headlines about fatal shootings and othe serious crime. we must aggressively strike back at the anti-social forces that want to destroy our country.
they have made it the cornerstone of the 2022 campaign
“sweden should not be a free zone for illegal immigrants or a parandise for cirminals .for us sweden democrats it is quite simple, if what sweden offer does not fit,you only have to pack your bag and go home.”
despite public perception as a right-wing party, the recent data shows that the sweden democrats are stealing young voters from the country’s progressive and ruling parties.
Dana’s parents came from Iraq.she grew up in the vulnerable area of malmö.
” when i was growing up there was a lot of shooting, a lot of rape. i never felt safe going out , especially as a women.and especially as a middle eastern women.
she choose to join sweden democrats because she was sick and tired of not being able to go outside.being afraid of people from my own home countries.she was actually afraid for her own life.
Emil joined the sweden democrats just after being robbed in his home town, a small village in rural sweden.
and this is what he think about the link between the crime and immigration?
emil:well ,there are many links.one of them is for example where you see increased segregation in sweden. many areas. we have areas in sweden where people barely speak swedish at all.people feel no loyalty to the majority society.
they dont feel any loylty to the swedish state , swedish law and i think a lot of people or some people in those areas, also feel this disrespect towards the swedish people’s.
and one thing is, of course , sweden democrats says they should be curbing immigration almost completly.
and emil does agree with that and says that “we need a net zero immigration to sweden.
Isabella agrees with the policy of almost zero immigration.
she says:” right now , yeas.because we need to intergrate people that came to sweden first before we can take in anyone else.i really believe that,small immigration can be positive for our country and can takethe country forward.but right now that it will not happen if we continue to take in immigrants.
in a race for votes, sweden’s major parties are now starting to talk along the same lines. with progressive prime misniter magdalena andersson
recently stating that sweden has failed to integrate the vast number of immigrants.that it’s received in the past two decades.
but not everyone agrees that immigration is the cause of sweden’s gun crime epidemic.
Lisa pelling is an academic who’s studied the intergration of immigrant communities.
” i think people are really upset about it happening.the sweden demorats scapegoat ,as always to blame everyting on immigration. and it is true that the likelihood of commiting a crime is higher if you have immigrated to sweden or if you have immigrant background ,it is true.
but ,the likelihood ofcommitting a crime is much ,much higher if you are a school dropout or if your parents have received social benefits so,it’s really a question of social segregation.it’s a question of socially disadvantaged areas
lisa believes eduation is the key to intergration, and it’sa place where successive if governments have failed.
so we have a tremendously large and increasing dropout rate, around 17,000 young kids every year,around 17% would leave the compulsory school and at 16, in an advanced economy like sweden , there are no jobs for 16 years olds without aformal education.
so this kids would feel that their prospects, their futures , that a lot of doors closing on them. and of course , not everyone, but many are then attracted by the option of joining a criminal gang.
one fifth of the swedish population is from a migrant background ardavan.as a criminologist and doctor.he says the problem is sweden is failing its immigrant communitites.
” the main question is if you stop immigration, will the shooting stop? well, perhaps not, because those who are doing the shooting today are mostly individuals that was a child when they came to sweden or have been born in this country.
if a child is growing up in sweden with swedish values in swedish schools and still have not these valuse ,for example,and not even can talks swedish properly,then that’s a problem of the society which must be fixed.
while sweden edges towards the right, and grapples for solutions, the violance continues
photographer mike is just heard of another gruesom crime.
someone heard gunshots in västerås, and they ‘ve also heard the police chopper in the area.
the guy has been shot,according to the information.
västerås, Hammarby -the area.
that’s all evidence,could be shell casings, blood traces.
as the police leave,jsut a small sign of the night’s drama remains.
that’s where they found him or perhaps where he got shot.
he was injured.mike doesn’t know how serious the injures are.but heard he’s injured and taken to the hospital
and with no sign of slowing , it’s uncertain if a change in government will actually stop the bloodshed.