Content warning: Violence
At 12:30 on Tuesday, February 4, local emergency services were called to Campus Risbergska in Örebro, Sweden, in response to an ongoing shooting.
Within ten minutes, over a hundred policemen arrived at the scene which has been described as an ‘’inferno’’, where they encountered smoke, as well as injured and deceased persons.
After an hour of searching through the partially smoke-filled building the emergency intervention was halted when the suspected shooter was found, dead, with weapons lying next to his body. He is believed to have died by suicide.
The police have since announced that while they believe they have identified the perpetrator they cannot confirm his identity until receiving definitive results from a DNA match.
The report states that the suspect was not previously known to the police and that he was licensed and registered to own four guns, three of which were found at the site. All four weapons have since been reported to have been seized.
An extensive investigation is still underway and the police have sparingly released further information. According to official reports, there is a confirmed death toll of eleven individuals including the suspected gunman. The number of injured persons remains unconfirmed but is alleged to be high.
“It is an extremely tragic event that has affected, above all, the victims and their relatives, and affects the whole of Sweden,” Roberto Eid Forest, local police chief, said in a press conference the following evening.
In Stockholm, the Prime minister, Ulf Kristensson, held a press conference of his own where he expressed his ‘’bottomless sorrow,’’ over the loss of innocent lives due to ‘’brutal, deadly, violence,’’ which he declared the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.
Before ending his speech he urged civilians and journalists to allow police time and space to carry on with their investigation without intrusion, and to support each other in this time of need – rather than speculating.
The following day the flags outside the government, parliament, royal palace and other castles, flew at half-mast in mourning. The Prime Minister, Minister of Justice, as well as King Carl XVI Gustav and Queen Silvia, visited Örebro and participated in a memorial service in St. Nicolai church in the centre of the city.
In recent days many such memorial events have been held across Sweden, but the communal grief, and pleading of the Prime Minister, have not halted discussions about the tragedy.
Local newspapers like Aftonbladet and Expressen have been reporting on the tragedy, extensively, since it was first announced. Social media sites like TikTok, too, seem to cover the topic.
The topic of terrorism is especially prominent, and the discussion has moved from frustrated TikTokers to journalists. Oisín Cantwell, a reporter for Aftonbladet, wrote that ‘’there is still much we do not know about the tragedy, which does not prevent us from knowing a great deal.’’
Firstly, Sweden has seen its first school shooting. Murder on school grounds is, tragically, not unheard of. In 2015 a right-wing extremist murdered three and injured a fourth at Kronan School, a high school in Trollhättan, situated in a neighborhood with a high immigrant population.
In 2022 an 18-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison after murdering two teachers in Malmö. Both murderers used knives of different kinds.
Secondly, Campus Risbergska is host to a municipal adult education centre, a learning centre, and a Swedish For Immigrants centre, colloquially called SFI. SFI aims to provide basic knowledge in the Swedish language, reading and writing skills, to immigrants.
At the moment, the police do not see any threat to schools, preschools or adult education (including SFI) in the country.
According to Swedish law, an act of terrorism is defined as one that could seriously damage a state or intergovernmental organisation. The intentions behind the act must include instilling serious fear in a population or group, compelling the government to take or not take a certain action, and destabilising political, constitutional, economic, or social structures.
Many journalists and political experts believe the mass murder in Örebro does not fall under that definition. Security expert Jörgen Holmlund said in an interview that ‘’hatred against a certain group is usually not enough to classify a crime as a terrorist crime.’’
While police have refrained from publicly naming the suspect, local media outlets such as Expressen and Aftonbladet have identified him as 35-year-old Örebro resident Rickard Andersson.
His face has been featured in nearly every article covering the case. Reportedly, he was unknown to police before the shooting and may have been a former student at Campus Risbergska.
Sources describe him as “socially isolated” and unemployed in recent years. Interviews with neighbours depict him as a quiet man who would avoid eye contact. Aftonbladet reports that Andersson was rejected from the Swedish Defence Conscription and Assessment Agency due to lacking high school qualifications.
Written accounts of the suspect frequently cite witnesses who describe social and psychological difficulties dating back to his childhood. He has been characterised as a “lone wolf with essentially no social contact” – but one who legally possessed firearms.
In a follow-up article, Cantwell describes the attack as “a reckless assault on an education program which many immigrants attend, a determined man with an automatic weapon, a loner with a gun license who seems to have planned his act carefully.’’ Andersson is believed to have purchased smoke grenades on the internet, which were the cause behind the smoke at the scene.
Like the police, Cantwell does not claim to know of a discernible motive but writes that the investigation, including the search of Andersson’s computer, is still underway.
His article states that premature conclusions are being drawn on social media, which is often divided between left-leaning individuals who view it as an act of terror and right-leaning individuals who see it as the actions of a disturbed man without a political agenda.
However, the local news channel TV4 News has released video footage recorded during the attack. The footage was recorded from inside a bathroom stall and, at one point, an unidentified person can be heard shouting “Ni ska bort från Europa.” The differences in syntax between Swedish and English complicate direct translations, but can be translated most accurately as: “You will leave Europe” or “You will be removed from Europe.”
The attack has generated significant discourse across social media, and many conversations therein make the same point as Cantwell, that ‘’if it had been a Muslim without clear motives who shot ethnic Swedes to death, the roles would have been reversed.’’
On Friday, two days after the deadliest mass shooting in Swedish history, the Swedish government proposed updates to the country’s firearm regulations, which would explicitly require a suitability assessment for applicants seeking firearm licenses.
Additionally, the proposal suggests transferring existing regulations on doctors’ duty to report concerns and the police’s authority to revoke firearm licenses into the new law without modifications.
Featured image credit: Instagram, @kristenssonulf
Sleep-deprived fourth-year Literature, Film, and Media student. Cat enthusiast, Fleetwood Mac devotee, and avid collector of hobbies and obscure facts. Occasionally finds the time to paint, crochet, and write stories.
