[ad_1]
It is Monday night and the clock has not even struck 20. The two young men, with dark clothes and hats on their heads, pass by a bench in a park in Sollentuna, not knowing that the civil police sitting there was waiting for them .
One of the men dons a pair of white garden gloves while traveling. When they begin to disappear, the scout notifies his colleagues via police radio, who then take over. In a residential building, according to police, the men do “some kind of exchange” and are then separated. One goes to his house, the other to the laundry of the house where he is arrested.
All this would be everyday food, if it weren’t for the fact that every day scouts are uniformed policemen who have to be trained in reconnaissance work, and the man they just arrested is heavily armed.
Shortly after, the 18-year-old was arrested in a laundry room with a heavily laden k-track around his neck.
Photo: Police
– When we unzip his jacket, a heavily loaded automatic weapon falls off. It hangs around his neck with a shoelace, says one of the policemen.
In a conference room at the Solna police station, “rotators” sit in alternate chairs in an attempt to secure the “NIGS8” crown, a hands-on training in “offensive coercive intervention search investigation.”
The focus is on the weapons, drugs and criminal networks. The hope is to increase capacity and recreate parts of what was demolished during the police shakeup in 2015.
– There was a bit of free fall when the specialized drug groups were closed and the courts changed the sanctioning practice where the penalties for possession were cut in half. The amount of drugs increased and so did the violence, says Fredrik Bornesand, commissioner of crimes in the Stockholm North police area and responsible for educational activities.
Vehicle inspection in Kista. The man in the soft black pants had 19,000 SEK hidden in his underwear
Photo: Police
In north police zone there are a total of 13 different criminal networks. In 2015, a conflict began between two of the gangs, the Death Patrol and Shottaz. So far it has claimed between 10 and 20 lives, according to Stephan Kiernan, head of the Police Investigation Section in northern Stockholm.
– Shootings increased, increased and peaked in 2017. We realized we had to do something else.
In Stockholm began a special operation against criminal networks, “Equipo 2022”, which later became permanent. At the same time, the foundations of what this education would be were laid.
“We needed to regain the strength we had before, work long-term and increase capacity,” says Stephan Kiernan.
The training takes place in rounds of four months, both on the street and in the conference room.
– But it’s also about instilling courage in the police, making them lean forward, take action. They will be safer if they use coercive measures. Four months is probably the minimum for the token to fall, says Fredrik Bornesand.
The smell of cannabis from an apartment triggers a search of the house and the arrest of the apartment owner when he returns home. The apartment contains 3,100 grams of amphetamine, 20 grams of cocaine, 780 grams of cannabis and 170,000 SEK. The man was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison. In a photograph on his cell phone, he poses with an automatic rifle, an AK-47 and a loaded magazine.
Photo: Police
None of the applicants want to have their real names in the magazine, or show their face in a picture, they all hope to continue working as scouts in the future. At work, they are given names of numbers, some of which are also given informal nicknames. Like “Leffe”, bushy hair, blue training jacket, beard. He was the one sitting on the park bench.
After the training, they will rotate back to their respective local police areas. They are all under 40 years old, and almost all of them work daily as uniformed police officers, raising the alarm, intervening, writing reports and moving on to the next case. “Conveyor belt”, as Fredrik Bornesand describes it.
– In the regular service of rotators in uniformed intervention activities, it is rare to see the results of their work, when one has left the place they usually have no idea what happens next. Here you can follow the cases from start to finish.
The result of autumn round: about 20 kilos of drugs, including more than a kilo of cocaine, 400 grams of heroin, more than three kilos of ecstasy and almost 7 kilos of cannabis. In addition, two automatic weapons, five pistols and a kilo of dynamite.
A scout listens to the door of an apartment in Järva in a case involving an alleged firearms crime.
Photo: Police
– We attach great importance to coaching and attitude. Without him, the training period could have easily resulted in zero arrests, zero seizures. For four months, you could lie in a bush and write pm after pm about what you see. But what we want to do here is act fast and offensive, get guns, drugs and criminals off the streets, says Fredrik Bornesand.
He calls it “turning every stone”. Along with intelligence activities, relevant people are identified, consulted, and reasonable suspicion of a crime is built in order to carry out coercive measures such as visits and home searches on the same day.
Back to that monday in early September. When the young man is arrested with the heavily loaded automatic weapon, a Scorpio, around his neck, is 18 years old and only appears with a penalty warning for minor drug offenses on the criminal record. A few months earlier, he had pulled the student out of high school.
The 18-year-old had a fully loaded automatic weapon, a Scorpio-k-track, dangling from his neck with a shoelace.
Photo: Police
According to one of the policemen who detained the 18-year-old in the laundry, he behaves nervously and sometimes has difficulty breathing.
– There’s a magazine in the gun. It hangs very easily accessible and hidden. All you have to do is pull the chain on your jacket for a chance to act, says the police who made the arrest on questioning, describing the suspect as notably affected by being arrested and searched.
The man was initially a suspect even in preparation for the assassination, something he denies. However, he admits to having committed a felony firearms offense and a misdemeanor drug offense for smoking cannabis on the same day of arrest.
– It is difficult to deny that they have taken me with a weapon, says the man in question.
At the same time, he claims that another person hung the gun around his neck, half a minute before the arrest. The district court judged his information to be correct “in the parts that could be verified”, but at the same time stated that he put on gloves before handling the weapon and that the explanations did not “affect the qualification of the fact.”
After the penalty discount is sentenced him to one year and four months in prison. The verdict has been appealed to the Court of Appeal.
– I think he has received an excessively high penalty given the low participation he has had, says the defense of the now 19-year-old, Ellika Steenberg.
Image of a checkpoint in Sollentuna. One of the two men in the car has three phones, two of which are encrypted. “It is common among criminals and it is something that we come across frequently,” says one of the policemen in training.
Photo: Police
On appeal, the lawyer writes that “XX has lacked motive and has acted hastily without planning or consideration. During the hearing, it was also learned that XX is very sorry and has been eager to have been persuaded and had a hard time saying no. Of course, this should be reflected in the penalty.
His pair, who also carried the weapon, is sentenced to the corresponding penalty.
For the police, the sanctions are a joke. Following a case from start to finish is satisfying, but it is also often fraught with disappointment.
– It is difficult to understand how you can walk with a sharp weapon in a densely populated area, where there are families with children, and you will be out of prison after a year, says one of the policemen.
“What we want to do here is act fast and offensive, get guns, drugs and criminals off the streets,” says Crime Commissioner Fredrik Bornesand, who is responsible for the training.
Photo: Nicklas Thegerström
“Leffe”, the student of the team on the park bench, has worked as a police officer for 5 years.
– Personally, I have never felt more police than in the last 3-4 months. Standing on the front lines and literally getting your hands on serious crime doesn’t make you feel like you’re saving the world, but you feel like you’re really making a difference.
Read more: Eleven killed in Stockholm since July – zero arrested
