Lately shootings have become part of everyday life for the citizens in Sweden’s southern city of Malmö. During the last week, shootings have been reported almost daily and the police are still clueless as to who the perpetrator (or perpetrators) of these horrid crimes may be.
So far the victims of Malmö’s recent shootings have been restricted to individuals of foreign background, yet the shootings have not been concentrated to particular parts of the city. While the victims all have been first- or second-generation immigrants there is no further known connection between the victims—except that they have been unfortunate enough to fall victim to a violent perpetrator. The media is already talking about a second “Laser Man” (laser mannen), as the shootings are reminiscent of a serial killer who committed a series of shootings with the aid of a laser gun sight in Sweden during the 1990s.
According to journalist Gellert Tamas, author of the bestselling book Lasermannen – en berättelse om Sverige (The Laser Man – A Story About Sweden), there are several similarities to the recent shootings in Malmö and that of John Ausonius, also known as the “Laser Man”. At the time Ausonius the political party Ny Demokrati (New Democracy) had just managed to get into the Swedish government. This is a political feat recently accomplished by the controversial Sweden Democrats. Both of the parties were labeled as immigrant-hostile and were known for holding racist views, views which, ironically, the “Laser Man” admitted identifying with.
Gellert, who works as a journalist, noted that;
“Ausonius felt supported, that people stood behind him. He also felt a political support from New Democracy but also from other immigrant-hostile parties such as the Sweden Democrats”.
In addition to the possibility of racially-motivated crime, there may also be an element of gang revenge; this would be an extension of the immigrant violence which has been reported at length in this blog. In fact, one “former” gang leader vowed that “ex” gang members would take the law into their own hands and kill the shooter. As the reporting and the pattern of incidents have been less than clear (including at least one fake shooting), multiple scenarios are possible, all of which point to a growing lawlessness in Malmö.
Not surprisingly, the continuous upswing of violence in Malmö has attracted more attention for Sweden in the international media. No doubt some of this attention is sensationalist, as there seems to be a repetition of frightening, somewhat random shootings. Yet some attention is due also to the increasing attention Sweden is getting in the media as a prime example of the “multi-kulti” paradigm breaking down in Europe. Some of the newspapers which write about Malmö as a downward-spiraling city are:
the German der Spiegel and die Welt, UK-based Guardian and the US-based Washington Post. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot also decided to run a piece on Malmö this past week.
Following are descriptions of some of the most recent shootings where people have been injured:
Oct 23: A tailor hears shot outside his store and goes outside to see what is going on. Once outside he is head-butted by an unknown man.
October 21: Two women are injured when a shot is fired through a window in the Kroksbäck neighborhood. The women are only lightly injured.
October 20: Two men, 22 and 29-years-old are shot in the Lindängen neighborhood.
October 19: A 28-year-old man is shot in the back at a bus stop.
October 16: A man is shot in the shoulder during the night between Friday and Saturday at the Barcelona bar in Malmö.
It is evident that Malmö now is a city far away from the peaceful associations that most people have when they think about Sweden. The fact that Malmö has started on a downward-spiraling cycle of violence was already evident at the beginning of the year when Jewish families were attacked. Yet as this blog predicted “Jews might be the first, but they are never the last”…
Click here for a map outlining all the recent shootings in Malmö (descriptions in Swedish).
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