Yesterday around noon local time, the Danish police along with the Danish version of the FBI (PET), and the army coordinated what turned into being a
nationwide manhunt following yet un-disclosed events.
The police quickly and effectively shut down all infrastructure options, making it impossible to leave Sealand towards Sweden or Jutland. All traffic
on bridges, trains, ferries was completely shut down, and queues in the worst places ended up stretching for 30km as friday's rushhour hit the main
roads around 2-3 pm local time.
As the worry grew, people in the jams started going out of their cars to find out what was going in, the police ordered everyone stepping out of their
car to get back in via loudspeakers.
At 7pm the police made a public statement on national tv, alas not disclosing anything concrete aside from them believing they were now in control of
the black Volvo V90 with Swedish plates that had been aluding them for several hours.
The car was a rental car that had been rented by a local swede in Malmö on aug. 1st. The car was then reported stolen on the 3rd of august by the
person who rented the car. It wasn't until yesterday that the car was again spotted in association with what the Danish police calls "a case of
serious crime".
This took place at the same time as Obama was speaking to a crowd of 200 people attending his conference in Kolding some 120km from where the manhunt
started. It is however not disclosed wether the manhunt had any relation to Obamas visit.
As of now, the 3 suspects are still at large, or the police has elected not to disclose wether they have them in custody or not.
All in all, these events have been shrouded in a heavy veil, and no information is getting out, leaving the public guessing as to what have
happened.
Initially the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, stated that one of their sources had said it was a case of kidnapping. However, that would mean that it
has to be a high profile person that was kidnapped. Again, there has been no further confirmation of this from any Danish officials. The lit is
tight.
HOWEVER, I cannot recall a single time where something remotely like this has happened. Where our police force shuts down the country like this. This
reinforces my belief that this can only be a very serious case of events.
Even back when we had the shooting of two people by a militant muslim, there was not this kind of attention.
Even our previous head of PET (Local FBI) Jørgen Bonnichsen, stated early on in yesterday's events that he himself could not recall anything like
this going on for the last 41 years.
I know other countries might have quite a lot of this type of police activity, but this has to be seen in the local context of Denmark being a very
quiet and relatively safe country with strict gun laws and in general a happy population with low un-employment.
Ofcourse we do have the same issues as everyone else with the current state of refugee crisis and we do live immediately next to Sweden which has
severe issues with militant muslim gangs, especially in Malmö. Our borders towards Sweden are pretty soft due to a mutual agreement, making it easy
to travel back and forth as soon as you become Danish or Swedish national.
Latest info as of saturday 8am in regards to the fugitives:
- Car has been found and taken into custody. No telling of where they found it.
- Suspects are presumed by the media to not yet be under custody. Three suspects at large.
- Latest heavy police action took place in the island of Fyn in Denmark, where the police made a base of operations in the town of Espe on a local
farm.
- They deployed drones in assistance to locate the suspects.
- Police continued to deploy forces to the main traffic junctions in the major cities in Jutland.
- The majority of police officers were in combat gear, yielding machine guns.
- The "Storebæltsbroen" which connects Sealand with Fyn was subject to a car-by-car search outside, inside and trunk, lasting into the evening.
- The police had stated that people should not make contact should they spot the suspects, but reiterated that this was a common statement to issue in
most cases. Asked wether the public should be worried on a 1-1 level, the police stated no, but be sure to contact the police if one spotted
anything.
- Saturday morning the police has shut down all information around the events.
- Crime scene technicians has been spotted arriving at the farm in Fyn, but police would not disclose as to why.
Google translated website of National Danish TV:
Extensive manhunt