Police in Oslo made two more arrests this week after several nights marred by violence and arson in the east- and southeast districts of Groruddalen and Søndre Nordstrand. Police haven’t managed to halt the vandalism, though, with another fire reported close to Fossum Church at Stovner.
Just minutes after the fire in the northern end of Groruddalen, came reports of shattered windows in Bjørndal on the city’s far southeast side. When police arrived at the scenes of the vandalism, at around 2:30am on Thursday, no one was in sight.
Four young men are now in custody, charged with vandalism. “It’s very serious when youth set garbage bins on fire or throw rocks at firefighters, police and security guards,” Inger Lise Lien, a researcher at the national center for violence and traumatic stress, told newspaper Aftenposten. She was referring a case that police describe as attempted murder last weekend, when young assailants who later fled dropped a 15-kilo rock from a pedestrian bridge onto a car driven by a security guard.
John Roger Lund, police chief of Oslo’s merged Stovner-Manglerud police station, said, however, that suspects include 10 to 15 youth with police records, and that the situation is not out of control. “We are tackling this with all the resources we have,” he told Aftenposten.
newsinenglish.no staff