Uppsala shaken by third shooting in less than a week
The residents woke up to a bang. In the stairwell lay a young man with fatal injuries. It was the third shooting in less than a week that shook Uppsala. ”I used to meet him in the area and he was always so happy and helpful. It’s so terrible that the wrong people are being murdered,” says Alva.
Police barriers flutter outside a 1950s house in Sala backe, Uppsala. The residents have not been able to leave their apartments since the police arrived at the scene early Tuesday morning. ”It’s terrible, it’s a shock for all of us,” says a neighbor.
At 5:16 am, the police were called to a report of an injured person found in a stairwell here. It turned out to be a young man in his 20s who had been shot. Before he reached the hospital, he was dead.
A resident woke up a short time before the shooting to knocking on a door somewhere in the building. Then came a bang. ”But I don’t know what guns sound like, so I thought someone had dropped a piece of furniture on the stairs.” The person looked out through the peephole but only saw mist outside. A few minutes later, blue lights flashed through the windows. ”I looked out again and saw someone performing CPR,” says the resident.
Unintended victim
The man who was shot is believed to be an unintended victim, according to reports to Aftonbladet. A relative of the so-called ”Kurdish fox,” Rawa Majid, lives in the same stairwell. But it is suspected that the shooter knocked on the wrong door and killed the wrong person.
Alva lives just around the corner and used to often meet the young man who was murdered in the area. She has just learned that he is dead and is upset. ”He was my comfort here in the neighborhood, someone who was always happy, active, and greeted me and used to help me carry grocery bags from the store. I didn’t know him, but this still feels terrible. It came as a shock. It’s so terrible that the wrong people are being murdered,” says Alva.
Several other residents in the area describe it as usually calm and safe, but that violence has crept closer. ”What has happened is very unsettling, but in some way, we have been waiting for it to happen. Just last week, there was a shooting very close to me. And then another shooting. This is a very nice old area that has never been affected by this type of crime before. Unfortunately, I don’t dare to believe that it will go in the right direction again,” says a resident in the area.
This was the third shooting in less than a week in Uppsala. According to Aftonbladet, all are linked to an internal conflict within the criminal network Foxtrot—a conflict where the contract killers intentionally seem to target each other’s relatives.
A woman was shot dead six days ago
Outside a villa in the Gränby area, just 2.3 kilometers away from today’s cordoned-off area, flowers lie on a mailbox. The police cordon tape is still there. A woman in her 60s was shot dead here just six days ago. She was the mother of the 33-year-old man believed to be on the other side of the internal conflict in Foxtrot. Four days later, another shooting followed, this time in the Stenhagen district. The motive is believed to be retaliation for the shooting of the 33-year-old’s mother. This time, the intended victim was Rawa Majid’s mother-in-law. But when no one opened the door when the shooter knocked, he instead fired a shot that hit the wrong house. No one was injured, but the mother-in-law tells Aftonbladet that the incident has left deep scars on her. No one knows what would have happened if someone had opened the door at her home. ”I’m a very tough, cheeky, and upfront woman with courage. You know, I’m a person who never cries, but now I’m so damn scared.” A friend of the 58-year-old woman killed says she is in shock after hearing that another person has fallen victim to the ongoing conflict. ”My friend was the kindest person and a mother. She helped everyone in need, collected money for Syria and other countries that needed help. And now another innocent person is being murdered. It’s just violence, violence, violence now. They have to stop shooting each other!”
