Rinkeby, a Stockholm suburb, was plagued by immigrant related riots, looting and violence Monday night.
Many police officers were attacked with by stones and shots were fired while hundreds of fires were lit.
According to the authorities, a police patrol carrying out a routine police operation in Rinkeby, a suburb in west Stockholm where more than 75 percent of the population has foreign background according to official statistics, was attacked.
“All of a sudden a bunch of people show up and start to throw stones at the officers. The officers feel cornered and fire warning shots. A police is hit in the arm by a rock and his injuries are unclear”, Stockholm police spokesman Lars Byström stated.
Tuesday morning The national public broadcaster Sveriges Television reported that the officers were forced to fire directly at the rioters.
According to Byström the officers felt extremely threatened by the violent crowd.
By 09:45 PM the unrest had escalated quickly. The police reported that several cars were burning in the area and the police were assisting firemen to put the fires out.
However, at 10:20 PM a second riot broke out in Rinkeby when 30 to 40 young men attacked the police with stones and other projectiles.
“We will make sure to reestablish law and order!” Byström tells Fria Tider in a situation update.
10:45 PM. Police report that seven or eight cars has been set on fire. There is a false alarm that a school has been set ablaze, the police suspect that it is a trap where the rioters are planning an ambush.
According to police sources “sometimes they call to lure us to a certain area”.
At the same time there are worrying reports that looting took place earlier in the evening. A shop keeper was beaten up trying to protect his store.