What happened
In less than a week, two people have been killed in shootings in southern Stockholm. Last Saturday, a woman in her mid-20s was shot dead in a sports hall in Älvsjö during ongoing children's activities. On Friday evening, a man in his mid-20s was shot dead in Bagarmossen. Criminologist Manne Gerell warns that the risk of further shootings is now significantly heightened due to escalating cycles of revenge. The police are urging residents to remain calm and state that there are currently no indications of links between the two incidents.
Our analysis
When violence strikes our communities, it is ordinary citizens who pay the highest price. It is new and long-time Swedes who are forced to experience the terror when shots are fired in sports halls and on local squares, and it is parents who hesitate before letting their children go to practice. Insecurity is not a political slogan, but a concrete daily reality for the people who live and reside there.
Yet after the attacks, almost the exact same political pattern follows. Instead of focusing on how residents should be protected, attention is quickly turned toward casting suspicion on entire residential areas. Politicians seeking quick points use the tragedies to frame suburbs as hotbeds of problems, rather than taking responsibility for years of cuts to preventive work and schools.
It is time to reverse the perspective: it is the residents of these areas who are the primary victims of violence, not its cause. The right to safety should not be determined by which postal code you live in, and the true cost of escalating violence is borne by the families who never get peace in their own neighborhoods.