Swedish police officers in the city of Uppsala claim they were attacked by “youths” with stones after responding to cars being set on fire.
The officers were responding to a call that cars had been set on fire in the Valsätra district in the south-west of the city at around 9:40 pm on Sunday. When they arrived on the scene, locals began throwing stones and rocks at them, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
Due to the attack, the officers were forced to call in for reinforcements who arrived on the scene a short time later and were able to calm the situation down and perform identity checks on the remaining youths.
Just over an hour later, police were called to the same area at 11:10 pm after more reports came in that even more cars had been set on fire in the neighbourhood.
Regional police spokesman Daniel Wikdahl said that the two incidents may have been linked saying: “It is impossible to exclude a connection between the fires.” No arrests were made in connection with the two incidents.
Police officers being attacked by “youths” in no-go zones in Sweden is not a new phenomenon and the area of Valsätra has previously been included in a Swedish police report on “vulnerable” areas.
Last year, police bodycam footage was released showing officers being violently attacked in the Stockholm suburbs of Rinkeby and Tensta, two of the most notorious no-go zones following various incidents including large scale riots.
Over the last year, several more serious violent incidents have been directed toward police including the bombing of a police station in Helsingborg in October that was described by Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven as an “attack” on democracy itself.
Earlier this year in the migrant-majority town of Södertälje, a police station was shot at ten times overnight, though no officers were present at the station at the time.
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