Sweden was in shock on Thursday after the shooting death of Mikael, a 39-year-old father, killed in front of his son in Skärholmen, south of Stockholm. Early Wednesday evening, both were cycling to the swimming pool. He died Thursday, according to the police who had not arrested anyone during the day.
According to several media outlets, including the television channel TV4 and the tabloids Aftonbladet and Expressen, the incident occurred around 6 p.m. in an underpass. The father and his son, aged 12, walked past a group of young people. Mikael would have returned to them for an as yet undetermined reason.
His son calls for help
This is where the shot was allegedly fired. His son would have called for help at 112 while his father was on the ground. “He hated injustice. It cost him his life, his sister, on condition of anonymity, told Expressen. He was sensitive, he didn’t like reading everything about the shootings.” Family members and local residents paid tribute to him, according to images broadcast on the channel.
The Scandinavian country is grappling with a gang war that reached an unprecedented level at the end of 2023 with a record number of shootings amid a fight for control of drug trafficking. These gangs recruit young people who are not criminally responsible to carry out criminal acts, some of the perpetrators being as young as 12 years old.
Several shootings in recent months in this neighborhood
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson announced they would go Thursday evening to Skärholmen, in the south of the capital, where the father was killed. Several shootings have been recorded in this neighborhood in recent months. “The criminal system facing our country has brutal consequences for our entire free and open society,” the prime minister said in an Instagram post.
“Such violent people should not be able to intimidate honest citizens into silence,” he added. “The gangs, totally ruthless, will not stop until we stop them,” added the leader.
The leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, said that "it is not enough to spout platitudes, it is time for Sweden to declare total war on all members of these criminal gangs."
This murder comes as the Swedish Parliament adopted a law on Wednesday authorizing police to create temporary zones to conduct body searches without suspicion of crime, in an attempt to stem the violence of criminal gangs.