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Authors: Anders Roslund
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bitter, pungent coffee, drug squad, surveillance, his pretext. They got up and hurried through the police station that had been built in the mid-nineties for twenty-two policemen in north Botkyrka, of which only four remained three years later. He had seen his colleagues redeployed, one after another, as all the mailboxes, windows, and chimneys in the building were doused with flammable liquid which then turned into flames, when the threat grew with every intervention, when the tires on private cars were slashed so many times that they didn’t bother to change them anymore and just watched the seats and engine burn.
“Left through the door. Four minutes’ walk. Råby Allé 67.”
The buildings, the asphalt, the smell of smoke. All part of a place that had become as much his as theirs. He knew and recognized the voices, faces, he knew which buildings were hottest in summer and where the wind blew coldest in winter.
They had only scraped the surface back then.
Identified open drug-dealing, emptied vehicles of guns, sawed-off shotguns, automatic guns, confiscated knives, axes, nunchucks, and batons from young men.
At the time, there had been more criminal groups in this concrete wilderness of high-rise blocks to the south of Stockholm than ever before in the entire country. It was a national issue. Which resulted in the Fittja Commission, the Special Gang Unit, the Section Against Gang Crime. Their patch started as Råby, then grew into Botkyrka, which expanded into Södertörn.
After three years only four were still there. And now, for a long time there had been just one, one person gathering information and building up a new police force with the sole aim of breaking up criminal networks in the southern suburbs of Stockholm.
José Pereira walked half a step ahead of the drug squad officers, past a burned-out rubbish room, two new piles of burned tires, the car that the fire brigade had abandoned in the morning, the moped that had so recently been in flames.
He no longer noticed it, in the way that we no longer see what’s always been there.
“There. The stairs in the middle. Second floor.”
The building looked like all the others. Seven stories, access balconies, colors that varied from gray to worn-thin gray, and orange doors that screamed from afar.
“Three windows without curtains, blankets over the two to the left, kitchen and bedroom.”
He had learned their names between the ages when they started to walk and later ride a bicycle. He had read through red files in social welfare offices, exchanged information with the principals of secure training centers and homes, had already had a clear picture of Leon Jensen and Gabriel Milton’s criminal activities by the time they were nine, without being able to do anything except wait. Until they reached fifteen and could be sentenced. Until they had developed so much in their criminal career that the only thing to do was to lock them up.
The stairwell smelled of steam and food. The steps were too short and too close. The door out onto the balcony whined as it had the last time.
“Second on the left. Says SANTOS on the mailbox.”
He had watched them grow up, grow together. When they were twelve, someone had whispered Råby Warriors for the first time and he had listened and thought what kind of nonsense is that ?, but then watched them expand. Leon Jensen and Gabriel Milton had become Alexander Eriksson and Bruno Viani, and others, Reza Noori and Ali Abdulahi and Jon Lindh and Uros Koren—he had started to monitor the twelve-year-old boys and witnessed the birth of criminals with a wide variety of talents: drugs, robbery, assault, contempt of court. He had watched them commit crimes together and seen the moment, he was sure of it, when they had somehow decided.
He closed in on the front door, checked the handwritten name, SANTOS , nodded to the two officers who were standing with their legs apart, hands to holsters.
He rang the bell.
Nothing.
José
“Left through the door. Four minutes’ walk. Råby Allé 67.”
The buildings, the asphalt, the smell of smoke. All part of a place that had become as much his as theirs. He knew and recognized the voices, faces, he knew which buildings were hottest in summer and where the wind blew coldest in winter.
They had only scraped the surface back then.
Identified open drug-dealing, emptied vehicles of guns, sawed-off shotguns, automatic guns, confiscated knives, axes, nunchucks, and batons from young men.
At the time, there had been more criminal groups in this concrete wilderness of high-rise blocks to the south of Stockholm than ever before in the entire country. It was a national issue. Which resulted in the Fittja Commission, the Special Gang Unit, the Section Against Gang Crime. Their patch started as Råby, then grew into Botkyrka, which expanded into Södertörn.
After three years only four were still there. And now, for a long time there had been just one, one person gathering information and building up a new police force with the sole aim of breaking up criminal networks in the southern suburbs of Stockholm.
José Pereira walked half a step ahead of the drug squad officers, past a burned-out rubbish room, two new piles of burned tires, the car that the fire brigade had abandoned in the morning, the moped that had so recently been in flames.
He no longer noticed it, in the way that we no longer see what’s always been there.
“There. The stairs in the middle. Second floor.”
The building looked like all the others. Seven stories, access balconies, colors that varied from gray to worn-thin gray, and orange doors that screamed from afar.
“Three windows without curtains, blankets over the two to the left, kitchen and bedroom.”
He had learned their names between the ages when they started to walk and later ride a bicycle. He had read through red files in social welfare offices, exchanged information with the principals of secure training centers and homes, had already had a clear picture of Leon Jensen and Gabriel Milton’s criminal activities by the time they were nine, without being able to do anything except wait. Until they reached fifteen and could be sentenced. Until they had developed so much in their criminal career that the only thing to do was to lock them up.
The stairwell smelled of steam and food. The steps were too short and too close. The door out onto the balcony whined as it had the last time.
“Second on the left. Says SANTOS on the mailbox.”
He had watched them grow up, grow together. When they were twelve, someone had whispered Råby Warriors for the first time and he had listened and thought what kind of nonsense is that ?, but then watched them expand. Leon Jensen and Gabriel Milton had become Alexander Eriksson and Bruno Viani, and others, Reza Noori and Ali Abdulahi and Jon Lindh and Uros Koren—he had started to monitor the twelve-year-old boys and witnessed the birth of criminals with a wide variety of talents: drugs, robbery, assault, contempt of court. He had watched them commit crimes together and seen the moment, he was sure of it, when they had somehow decided.
He closed in on the front door, checked the handwritten name, SANTOS , nodded to the two officers who were standing with their legs apart, hands to holsters.
He rang the bell.
Nothing.
José
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