Ex-gang members hunt Malmö gunman: report
Ex-members of criminal gangs in Malmö in southern Sweden have taken
up the hunt for an unknown gunman thought to be responsible for
nearly 20 shootings targeting people with immigrant backgrounds.
According to the local Sydsvenskan newspaper, the former leader of
one of the town’s largest criminal networks is among a group of “old
friends who have stuck together”and who are now actively looking
for the gunman which has left Malmö’s immigrant community gripped
with fear.
“He had better hope that we don’t find him first,” a man who referred
to himself as “Leo” told the newspaper during an interview in his
apartment in the city’s Rosengård neighbourhood.
The man believes he and his friends have better knowledge of the area
where the shootings have taken place and will likely find the gunman
before the police.
“It will be much easier for us to catch him than for the police,” he
told the newspaper.
At a Monday morning afternoon press briefing, police in Malmö
expressed urged concerned citizens to leave the investigation to the
police.
"People shouldn't take the law into their own hands," said criminal
inspector Börje Sjöholm.
"It’s totally reprehensible. You can’t have that in a society
governed by the rule of law; it’s the job of the police to uphold law
and order."
Sjöholm added that a number of false alarms had come in at the
weekend.
"We received calls about a number of shootings that didn't turn out
to be shootings," he said.
He explained that a special investigative group was launched after
police concluded that several unexplained shootings in the city may
be related.
“We’ve gone through the shootings we’ve had. When we realized it
could be the same perpetrator we decided to launch this
investigation. We’re talking about 15 shootings or so in the span of
a year,” he said.
However four additional shootings have taken place since the
investigation began which have been added to the original 15
incidents.
Altogether eight people have been injured, and one killed in the
shootings.
“We don’t want to say exactly which shootings,” he said.
Sjöholm also commented on the weapons believed to be used in the
shootings.
“We’ve confirmed that a number of weapons have been used in several
shootings,” he said, although he refused to confirm how many
shootings may be tied to the same gun.
Sjöholm also explained that police believe they are hunting a single
individual.
"The profiling group has gone through all the shootings and things
there is a strong grounds to believe it's the work of one and the
same assailant, but we can't let ourselves get locked into that," he
said.
Police nevertheless hope they have secured DNA evidence from a man
who beat and eventually fired a shot at a tailor and hairdresser in
the Augustenborg district on Saturday night.
“The tailor was headbutted, so we’ve taken swabs, taken clothing and
samples. We’ll send them over to the National Forensics Lab straight
away tomorrow morning for analysis,” Ewa-Gun Westford of the Malmö
police told the Aftonbladet newspaper on Sunday evening.
Police in Skåne county received a number of calls about suspected
shootings on Sunday night.
“Since 8pm, we’ve had eight or ten calls. We’ve gone out to all of
them, but nothing has proven to be acute,” police spokesperson Sofie
Österheim told the TT news agency.
Tensions in the city remain high as one young women learned on Sunday
night when she was stopped by two police officers at Nobeltorget
square.
“A caller warned of a woman wearing dark clothes and shorts who had a
holster on her thigh with a gun in it,” said Calle Persson of the
Skåne county police.
It turned out that the woman was on her way to a costume party.
“We pointed out to her that her clothing was in appropriate,” said
Persson.
Robert F Williams and Mabel Williams. Pioneers of militant self-defence in the Black civil-rights movement. Read of his arguments on the Sons of Malcolm blog HERE.
