Several serious violent crimes have occurred in Södertälje recently. Now, the police presence is being strengthened, but the risk is still high for more violence.
The likelihood and risk are high that further violent crimes will occur in this conflict environment, says Kristoffer Olofsson, deputy local police chief in Södertälje.
Several shootings and explosions have taken place in a short time in Södertälje, and the police see several similarities with the violence spiral that plagued the municipality in the autumn of 2022. At that time, several murders and attempted murders were committed within a week.
The conflict is fundamentally about a split within the Södertälje network, where the so-called Ronna faction ended up on one side and the Saltskog faction on the other. This conflict is still ongoing, according to Kristoffer Olofsson.
This is a conflict surface that has gone up and down in intensity over the past two years.
At the same time, other conflicts are ongoing in parallel in the municipality.
These are local conflicts between criminal groups fighting over small geographic areas for the drug market. It is also conflicts driven by revenge and fear of being subjected to serious violence, he says.
Young people are being recruited
What makes the police's work difficult is that very young people are being used to commit serious crimes. Many times, it is individuals who are not known to the police beforehand, who, according to Olofsson, are recruited through social media.
We also see that criminal individuals and networks are collaborating and networking with others from other parts of the country. What is very alarming right now is that several young people are being used as perpetrators of serious violent crimes anywhere in the country, says Olofsson.
They get very little pay for committing heinous violent crimes. We really need to help each other in society to create a safety net around our young people, because we see that many are being exploited cynically.
Not limited
Beyond the fact that the perpetrators are very young, the police see another challenge ahead; that the conflicts are not limited to, for example, a quarter or a district, as they often are.
There are certainly several reasons why it is escalating now, but partly because it involves parallel conflict surfaces that are ongoing simultaneously, says Olofsson.
To try to prevent new crimes, the police are strengthening their presence throughout the municipality.
We will be out in Södertälje at a number of different locations with a very high police presence, to prevent and prevent this development.
It will be noticeable that there are more police on Södertälje's streets.
The murder on October 1, 2022, occurred within the framework of a conflict between two criminal groups in Södertälje, according to the police.
The groups are called Ronnafalangen and Saltskogfalangen and are the result of a split in the so-called Södertälje network.
The conflict involves several murders in 2022 and intensified at the end of September last year with five shootings on open streets within two weeks. Three of the shootings had a fatal outcome.
The man who was shot on October 1 had no connections to gang crime and is not believed to be the intended victim, instead, the shooter was after people in Ronnafalangen.
The murder was intended as revenge for a fatal shooting the day before, when a 19-year-old was murdered in Ronna. The 19-year-old could, according to the police, be linked to Saltskogfalangen.
Source: The police's analysis report in the preliminary investigation protocol
