Cops wait an hour to respond to fatal shooting
Stockholm police have been criticised for taking over an hour to respond to a report of a shooting last week which left a man dead.
“That’s right, it took about an hour. We’re looking into it to see what happened,” Carina Lennquist-Johnsson of the Stockholm police confirmed to the Dagens Nyheter (DN) daily.
It was reported last week that the dead body was discovered by a passer-by who alerted the police just before 7am on Tuesday morning. The man saw a car with a smashed-in window and a lifeless body behind the wheel.
But new information suggests that police had received a call an hour previously from a witness who had heard gunfire in the neighbourhood, according to DN.
But despite the report, no patrol car was sent until the second call from the passer-by who saw the smashed up car.
According to police, it is too early to say if this was a bad judgement or if the decision not to respond was brought on by lack of resources.
“We regularly receive reports of bangs and cracks that turn out to be nothing,” Lennquist-Johnsson said to DN.
However, she reiterated that they are looking into the matter to see what happened.
The victim was a 37-year-old Stockholm resident. He was known to the police for minor offences but police have not been able to find connections to any criminal activities that could have brought on his murder.
There are currently no suspects in the case, neither have the police been able to discover a motive for the killing.
According to professor of criminology Jerzy Sarnecki the delay by the police might prove to have had serious consequences for the victim as well as for the investigation.
“This is very serious. There’s always a possibility that the person would have survived. Also, the police would have had a better chance of solving the crime if they had been on the scene straight away,” he told DN.
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“That’s right, it took about an hour. We’re looking into it to see what happened,” Carina Lennquist-Johnsson of the Stockholm police confirmed to the Dagens Nyheter (DN) daily.
It was reported last week that the dead body was discovered by a passer-by who alerted the police just before 7am on Tuesday morning. The man saw a car with a smashed-in window and a lifeless body behind the wheel.
But new information suggests that police had received a call an hour previously from a witness who had heard gunfire in the neighbourhood, according to DN.
But despite the report, no patrol car was sent until the second call from the passer-by who saw the smashed up car.
According to police, it is too early to say if this was a bad judgement or if the decision not to respond was brought on by lack of resources.
“We regularly receive reports of bangs and cracks that turn out to be nothing,” Lennquist-Johnsson said to DN.
However, she reiterated that they are looking into the matter to see what happened.
The victim was a 37-year-old Stockholm resident. He was known to the police for minor offences but police have not been able to find connections to any criminal activities that could have brought on his murder.
There are currently no suspects in the case, neither have the police been able to discover a motive for the killing.
According to professor of criminology Jerzy Sarnecki the delay by the police might prove to have had serious consequences for the victim as well as for the investigation.
“This is very serious. There’s always a possibility that the person would have survived. Also, the police would have had a better chance of solving the crime if they had been on the scene straight away,” he told DN.
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