Three men were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in an armed robbery and bomb scare in the Swedish west- coast city Gothenburg earlier in the day. Police chief Krister Jacobsson described the overnight heist of the city’s main post terminal as “spectacular,” and said it caused major disruptions for commuters and inhabitants…
Several cars were set ablaze on nearby access roads after the suspects fled. Several suspicious devices including a box marked “bomb” were also spotted.
The robbers also spread metal spikes at several locations, likely to prevent pursuing vehicles.
Police believed at least 10 people took part in the robbery and that five vehicles were set ablaze, said Klas Friberg, who is leading the investigation for the Gothenburg police….
At least the Swedish coppers didn’t find it necessary to reassure a supposedly trembling public that the thieves were not terrorists.
“Suspicion of involvement” doesn’t mean they actually caught any of the crooks.
On the topic of a (non-)trembling public, it’s also worth nothing the immediate analysis from media and from academic circles. (Sources in Swedish only, unfortunately).
The general consensus is that this is a “show-off” or a “spectcale” crime, rather than a threat to society. The most outrage-worthy fact about it all, at the moment, is that it caused disruptions in the commuter traffic, and that’s quite telling about everyone’s take on it: it’s an annoyance, not a threat.
In the long run, they say, it might evolve into something actually dangerous, as other criminal groups try to up-stage the kind of attention this incident caused — but that’s as far as the threat assessment goes.