A report from Uppsala, a Swedish image
Police forensic officer at the scene of this week’s shooting
Ahead of the Walpurgis Festival in Sweden, commemorating the beginning of spring, young people were busy choosing clothes and adjusting their hair. Not all of them were alive there.
Three young men police say aged between 15 and 20 years old were shot dead on Tuesday at a hair salon in Uppsala, a city north of Stockholm.
This fear left many shaking in the accumulation of the festival known as Sweden’s Valborg. This is usually a tenacious event on April 30th, the eve of St. Walpurga’s Christian Feast Day. Celebrated nationwide, Uppsala hosts the country’s largest and most well-known Walpurgis event, popular with students.
The party went in earnest, but a subtle weight was hanging over the Swedish blue and yellow flags flapping wings throughout the city.
And now, with the festival finished, it’s not a flag, but a police tape, flapping wings outside the underground barber shop where the filming took place near Vaxala Square.
The attack took place the day before the Wolpurgis Festival in Uppsala
“I knew something had happened.”
“It’s really sad,” says Yamen Alchoum, a 20-year-old student in the area to eat at a nearby food truck. He says he was at another barber shop on the night of the shooting and had previously cut his hair multiple times at the salon. “I think I was there [on Tuesday]…I’d be involved in filming. And that’s a bit scary. ”
The two young victims were dressed in barber capes and sat in parlor chairs when they were shot in the head just after 5pm on Tuesday, according to witnesses speaking to Swedish Media TV4 and Afton Bradette.
Yamen Alchoum
The city centre was busy at the time as commuters headed to the nearby train station and students from the city’s prestigious universities returned to their flats.
Witnesses reported that many people heard big bangs that they mistaken for fireworks. A few minutes later, several police cars and ambulances arrived, blocking the street and causing the bus to turn around. Helicopters and drones were dispatched to try and track down the suspects. Local media reported that he would wear a mask and use an electric scooter to escape the scene.
“I heard the helicopter and knew something had happened,” says Sara, 32, who lives on the street. She says her phone was immediately lit up with news notifications and texts from a friend asking if she was okay.
Approximately two hours after the shooting, police arrested the 16-year-old. In Sweden, suspects can be held on a variety of levels of suspicion, while teenagers were initially held at the second highest level, showing strong suspicion.
By Friday, however, prosecutors said the case against him had weakened and he had been released.
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Police quickly arrived at the crime scene
On Saturday, Swedish police confirmed six people had been arrested in connection with the incident. According to the state prosecutor’s office, the suspects range from 18 to under 45 years of age, with one suspected of committing the murder.
Those intended to visit Uppsala for the Wolpurgis festival were encouraged not to change plans as police promised additional resources in the cathedral city and suggested the shooting was a “isolated incident.”
While many were rocked, tens of thousands of Swedes still listened to advice, packing up the banks of Uppsala’s Phyllis River, watching the annual student rough race, drinking in the city’s pubs and parks, and heading for the giant public bonfire in the evening. Others took part in the annual spring ceremony outside the university, where current and former students gathered to waving white hats.
“I’m not that scary,” says 19-year-old social studies student Alvin Rose, who has a snack in Vaxala Square, round the corner from where the shooting took place. “It feels like there’s more security and there’s more cops.”
Alvin Rose says he has noticed more security since the attack
His friend Cassandra Fritz, an 18-year-old natural science student, says he told Uppsala “to have fun and meet new people” from his home in Gable, two hours north.
She reflects her lack of a “strong” response to news about the Swedish shooting. Because they are often in the headlines. “There have been so many shootings recently, not just here in Uppsala, but everywhere in Sweden.”
Hot spots for gun violence
Over the past decade, Sweden has emerged as a European hotspot for gun crime, and is often associated with criminal networks. A study published last year by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention found that perpetrators’ profiles are “increasingly younger” and that the number of teenagers is increasingly engaged in or dying gun violence.
Swedish Prime Minister Wolf Christerson was on a business trip to Valencia when the Uppsala shooting took place, and has since described it as “very violent.”
“This emphasizes that the wave of violence hasn’t ended – it continues,” he said in an interview with Swedish news agency TT on Wednesday.
At a press conference the following day, the official said they were investigating the possibility that death was linked to gang crime, but it was too early to confirm this.
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Police are investigating whether death is related to gang crime
Police in various Swedish cities have previously said that it is more common for gangs to sign vulnerable children to contract vulnerable children as people under the age of 15 are below the Swedish criminal responsibility era.
The Swedish government recently proposed a new controversial law that would allow police to eavesdrop on children to prevent them from being recruited by teenage gangs.
The minister also says he wants to strengthen the country’s gun laws.
In February, 10 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in the country at an adult education centre in the town of Orebro, Sweden. In this case, police suspect that the 35-year-old was behind the murder. He legally owns a weapon and was found dead inside the building.
Tributes and tears
Young people leave flowers on street corners near the salon
Outside the Uppsala hair salon, the 20-year-old Yamen says she has never been involved in gang crimes but knows there are plenty of others.
“There’s been many gang violence in my school, and on the streets – dealers,” he says. “But my personality was to work and study. And now I’m in college.”
As he leaves to meet his friends, a steady stream of young people stops on the street corner next to the hairdresser, some bringing bouquets of flowers. Some appear visibly shaking, with tears in their eyes.
“I knew him well,” says Elias, 16. He said he was friends with one of the victims and asked the BBC not to share his last name. “I feel that’s unrealistic. You know. I don’t feel like I really embraced the situation.”
