By Bert Brussen, TPO – In late January, three very violent shootings occurred in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. In one of these shootings, a 15-year-old boy shot indiscriminately with an Uzi. From a report on the trial of the suspects, which began Wednesday, it appears that all the suspects are very young: most are 14 or 15 years old, and the oldest is not yet 21.
According to the Swedish prosecutor’s office, the suspects are errand boys of the criminal gang ‘Foxtrot’, which is at war with the criminal gang ‘Dalennätverket’. These gangs, which deal drugs in Stockholm neighborhoods, often use minors as errand boys, sometimes as young as 10 years old. Teenagers are deliberately used by the gangs because minors can face a maximum sentence of four years in prison under Swedish criminal law.
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In one of the three shootings, two 15-year-olds were ordered by the gang leader “Kurdish Fox” to go to the Enskede neighborhood of Stockholm and shoot someone with a submachine gun. Who was to be hit didn’t matter, the main thing was to get the violent message across.
When they arrived in Enskede, at least seven shots were fired and a random boy was picked up with the gun. This boy had no connection to any of the gangs or the suspects. One of the bullets pierced the window of an apartment where people were sitting on their couches at the time.
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According to prosecutors, these crimes are part of “organized criminal activities” that constitute aggravating circumstances. The motive, prosecutors said, in all cases was “killing, threatening and intimidating rival gang members.”
Attorneys for all the defendants maintain that their clients are innocent.
The number of murders per year in Sweden has been rising sharply since 2012, peaking in 2020 when 124 people were murdered, nearly double the 2012 figure when 68 people were killed. In 2022, 116 people were murdered in Sweden. The vast majority of murder victims are male.
The number of fatal violent crimes in Swedendeclined sharply in 2008 (82 deaths compared with 111 deaths in 2007) and continued to decline thereafter to a low of 68 deaths in 2012. In subsequent years, the number of violent deaths continued to rise.
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Along with the number of homicides the number of shootings in Sweden is also rising. In the peak year of 2022, Swedish police recorded 391 shootings. There were at least 60 deaths (almost as many as the total number of Swedish homicide victims in all of 2012), and 107 people were injured.
In the same peak year of 2022, as many as 17 more people were killed in shootings than in 2021.
Most Swedish homicides in 2022 were committed in the Stockholm region.
