Swedish Police Chief Rages "It"s An Attack Against Society" After Station Bombing

A police station in the southern Swedish city of Helsingborg was hit by a powerful explosion in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

As The Local reports, a large part of the building and even the windows on the building opposite were damaged by the force of the blast, though nobody was injured.

Sweden"s National Police Commissioner, Dan Eliasson, was visibly shaking when he raged:

"This is very serious. An attack on the police is not just an attack against society, but on everyone"s safety,"

No one has claimed responsibility for the blast about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Malmo, Sweden"s third largest city.

The alarm was raised shortly after midnight, and there was severe damage to both the entryway and the inside of the building.

"The whole entrance has been blown away. The windows are shattered and there"s damage to the doors themselves," said Lennart Linderos from the regional emergency services.

On Wednesday morning, bomb technicians had finished their survey but other technicians were still at work. Asa Emanuelsson, a police press officer, said that the rest of the property would be investigated during the day.

"It has suffered extensive damage, but exactly how much, we don"t know yet," she said.

Local residents said the explosion was powerful. "I was in my kitchen and felt the apartment shake. It felt as if someone had thrown something at my balcony," a resident told Helsingborgs Dagblad.

Heavily armed police officers were stationed outside those buildings on Wednesday.

Suburban feuds between criminal gangs fighting over territory have taken place in major Swedish cities in recent years. The explosion wasn"t immediately being investigated as terrorism.

"It is fair to believe that this is a consequence of the good police work we do," police spokesman Patric Heimbrand told a news conference.

 

"We work in heavy criminal environments and some of them could be irritated. But to those I"d say that we cannot be influenced."

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told Sweden"s TT news agency the blast was "extremely serious" and it was "an attack on our democracy".

"Violence against police must never be accepted," he was quoted as saying, adding that the fight against serious crime must be intensified "with stricter laws, better tools and increased resources to the police"