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2022-04-16 Europe

Expert Warns of ‘Terrible Year' As Swedish Fatal Shootings on Track to Break Records

[Breitbart] Swedish police gang crime expert Gunnar Appelgren has warned Sweden could be in for a “terrible year” as the number of fatal shootings could break new records if current trends continue.

On Sunday, Sweden — once a peaceful state of less than ten million souls — saw its 20th fatal shooting this year, and if trends continue the country may be seeing a new record for fatal shootings this year.

So far 2022 has seen the most fatal shootings from January to April of any year since the Swedish police began to publish records of shootings in November of 2016. There were seven fatal shootings in the equivalent reporting period in 2017, 2018 had nine, 2019 had 16, 2020 had 15, and 2021 had seven.

Gunnar Appelgren, Detective Superintendent and Gang Expert at the Swedish Police Authority spoke to broadcaster SVT regarding the trend for this year saying, “If you look at the start of this year, there are more deaths, but about as many shootings as there were in 2020. It’s a very high level we’re at right now.”

Appelgren noted that many of the killings are related to criminal gang activity and revenge conflicts between gang members. “There are still very violent conflicts and spirals where revenge begets revenge. The very first crime of trying to shoot someone dead creates this spiral of violence,” he said.

In recent years, Swedish police have successfully managed to take many gang members off the streets of cities like Malmö, largely thanks to the hacking of the encrypted messaging app EncroChat, which was widely used by organised criminals across Europe.

However, according to Appelgren, those gang members who have been taken off the streets have been replaced by younger gang members who are just as willing to use firearms.

“Even if you have prosecuted a lot of people, younger boys continue to be perpetrators in these murders or attempted murders with firearms,” he said.

“If we look statistically at the last five years, there will be more shootings in the next four or five months than in January-April. If this trend is true, we have a terrible year ahead of us,” he added.