UPPSALA, Sweden - Swedish police have arrested a suspect in a shooting that killed three young men at a hair salon, authorities said on Wednesday, amid heightened nerves over gun violence in the Scandinavian nation.
The shooting on Tuesday took place in broad daylight, a day before the Valborg or Walpurgis spring festival which draws more than 100,000 people to the city for celebrations, many of them students.
“One person has been arrested suspected of murder,” police commander Erik Akerlund told a press conference in the city of Uppsala, 60 kilometres north of Stockholm.
Swedish media reported that at least one of the dead had connections to organised gang crime, though police would not confirm those reports.
The country has struggled for years to rein in shootings and bombings between rival gangs.
Akerlund said several people “considered of interest in the investigation” had been brought in for questioning.
Police said the incident was believed to be “an isolated event” and not linked to the extensive Walpurgis night celebrations expected later on Wednesday.
Police said the attack on Tuesday was staged by a masked gunman. Media reports said at least one suspect was seen escaping on an electric scooter.
Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer called the killings “extremely serious” but police would not say if it was the latest episode in a long-running gang war. Sweden is also recovering from its worst mass shooting in February.
The public broadcaster SVT said one of the dead had been a suspect in an investigation into a planned attack against a relative of a gang leader, Ismail Abdo.
“It’s normally a quiet neighbourhood, I do my shopping here every day,” Elias Sundgren, a student at the local university, told AFP.
Gang violence
Uppsala Mayor Erik Pelling told AFP he was “shocked and dismayed” by events.
“I am also angry that it could happen,” he added.
“We are forced to live with these crimes. I am frustrated that we have not been able to tackle this problem more effectively.”
On Feb 4, the country was rocked by its worst mass shooting when 35-year-old Rickard Andersson entered the Campus Risbergska adult education centre in the city of Orebro and shot dead 10 people before turning the gun on himself.
Sweden has struggled for years to rein in shootings and bombings between rival gangs. Earlier this month, two people were killed in a suspected gang fight in Gothenburg. A renowned rapper was shot dead in a gang battle in Gothenburg last year.
Perpetrators are often young teens who are hired as contract killers because they are under 15, the age of criminal responsibility in Sweden. The number of reported gang deaths fell in 2024, however.
In the country of 10.6 million people, 92 cases of deadly violence were recorded in 2024, 29 fewer than in 2023, and the lowest level since 2014, according to official data.
There were 296 reported shooting cases in 2024, a 20% decrease from the year before, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s centre-right minority government, which is backed in parliament by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, came to power in 2022 with a vow to get tough on crime.