Cultural enrichment
Who is to blame?
This category of crime was not even logged prior to 2017. Then, in 2018, there were 162 explosions and in the past two months alone the bomb squad have been called to almost 30.
"Bangers, improvised explosives and hand grenades" are behind most of the blasts, says Linda H Straaf, head of intelligence at Sweden's National Operations Department.
Gun crime among gangs is of course not unique to Sweden, but why do criminals in the country appear to be turning towards grenades in particular? Joakim Palmkvist, a Malmö-based crime journalist and author who has decades of experience writing about gang violence, thinks the choice was made easy for them by the law.
"Why use a hand grenade? Well, say you want to scare or injure someone. Option one: you take a gun, threaten them, perhaps shoot them in the leg. Then it's attempted murder or an aggravated weapons crime – the guy you shot sees you and can point you out. On top of that there's a big trail: the empty shells, bullets that can be tied to a specific weapon. Traces on your hands after the shot. You have to get rid of that, clean it and so on. And you're also at risk of being caught committing a serious crime if you're stopped and searched before the incident even happens," he explains to The Local.
"Option two: you take a hand grenade and throw it at the person's house. It'll be either carelessness endangering the public or perhaps attempted murder. But all of the traces are gone. And who saw you throw the grenade?
Before the law was changed, if you were stopped and searched while travelling to the place with one on you, you went down for a lighter crime."
Police head Staaf believes a combination of factors have played a part in the use of grenades by gangs, but also highlighted the laws in the area:
"In the past there were relatively light sentences for them, though that has changed now. It has also been cheap and fairly easy to buy them when someone was at the same time buying weapons from the former Yugoslavia."
Previously that meant the minimum sentence for aggravated breaches of
laws governing possession of explosive materials was only six months in prison, with a maximum sentence of four years.
Gangbangers from Gotham Chichago , can only dream of grenades
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