Police cars smashed in Tensta ‘guerrilla’ riot
Some 100 people in their early twenties rioted in the Stockholm suburb of Tensta just after midnight on Wednesday night, smashing up police cars and throwing stones at officers.
“We were on the scene with 18 patrols. It was like guerrilla warfare,” said Stephan Nordenmark, of the Stockholm police to newspaper Aftonbladet.
The incident was sparked after a security guard was targeted with green laser.
When he confronted a group of some six young people about the incident, they immediately jumped him and started beating him up.
The assailants were described as being in their early twenties, some of which wore masks and carried knives.
When police backup arrived, the cars were immediately attacked with stones, rendering three cars out of action.
“The first group soon had company and over the course of the night there were approximately 8-10 groups circling around in the area,” Nordenmark told daily Dagens Nyheter (DN).
Police were unable to make any arrests during the night as all efforts wee aimed at securing the area for the “normal people living there” and keeping the troublemakers from torching cars and throwing rocks through windows.
“It is not easy to get to the real troublemakers. We can really only arrest the person who threw the rock. But there’ll be eight or ten loosely knit groups that move quickly and disappear down the alleyways. It is a bit of a guerrilla battle. They keep changing their clothes as well, making it hard to identify them,” Nordenmark told Aftonbladet.
Police believe that the attack on the security guard was planned to lure police officers to the area. They are now working hard at identifying the rioters through security camera footage.
TT/The Local/rm
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“We were on the scene with 18 patrols. It was like guerrilla warfare,” said Stephan Nordenmark, of the Stockholm police to newspaper Aftonbladet.
The incident was sparked after a security guard was targeted with green laser.
When he confronted a group of some six young people about the incident, they immediately jumped him and started beating him up.
The assailants were described as being in their early twenties, some of which wore masks and carried knives.
When police backup arrived, the cars were immediately attacked with stones, rendering three cars out of action.
“The first group soon had company and over the course of the night there were approximately 8-10 groups circling around in the area,” Nordenmark told daily Dagens Nyheter (DN).
Police were unable to make any arrests during the night as all efforts wee aimed at securing the area for the “normal people living there” and keeping the troublemakers from torching cars and throwing rocks through windows.
“It is not easy to get to the real troublemakers. We can really only arrest the person who threw the rock. But there’ll be eight or ten loosely knit groups that move quickly and disappear down the alleyways. It is a bit of a guerrilla battle. They keep changing their clothes as well, making it hard to identify them,” Nordenmark told Aftonbladet.
Police believe that the attack on the security guard was planned to lure police officers to the area. They are now working hard at identifying the rioters through security camera footage.
TT/The Local/rm
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