How Sweden's youth homes nurtured killers, creating Europe's gun crime capital
How Sweden's youth homes nurtured killers, creating Europe's gun crime capital
The killer was only 14 and had lived in youth homes as a ward of the authorities since he was eight.
A year ago, a gang helped the boy escape, put him up in a hotel and gave him cannabis, food and new clothes. Six days later, gang members told him it was time to repay them for their kindness. They had a job for him.
Together with another youth, the boy, who as a juvenile cannot be identified, shot dead a 33-year-old Hells Angels biker. He was convicted by a court which described the case as a gangland contract killing.
As he was too young to be sentenced, he was handed back to social services and sent to another youth home.
Sweden has long prided itself on one of the world's most generous social safety nets, with a state that looks after vulnerable people at all stages of life.
But these days it also has another distinction: by far the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU. Last year 55 people were shot dead in 363 separate shootings in a country of just 10 million people. By comparison, there were just six fatal shootings in the three other Nordic countries - Norway, Finland and Denmark - combined.
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Sounds like that gang is doing exactly what countries do, except they're smaller and therefore wrong while the country is right. It's all relative to the size of your steeple.
I dunno about you but the state that I live in has never asked me to go kill hells angels because they gave me some social care money at one point.
It works like that in the US! I had to sign up for the draft to exist, and they can ask me to kill at any point!
I didnt have to sign up since its automatic and required for all males where I am from. But still, my country hasnt and will not ask me to go kill hels angles in other countries.
No, they'll ask you to kill people in other countries.
They havent done that either. And at the moment it looks quite improbable for them to do so.
What are you smoking? Yes they have. All the time. Welcome to Earth. We have war for oil and cows.
I'm smoking weed and not killing people in other countries.
I must have missed the call up for service. Along with the rest of the country.