Malmö: A Hot Time in the Old Town Last Night

Here are the highlights of the latest “youth” rampage from Sydsvenska Dagbladet, the largest newspaper in the south of Sweden. For our American audience, I have heavily edited/commented on the translated version I received - mainly because the lack of action by the police feels so foreign to American sentiments.

[NOTE: while I was given the source for the story, there was no link provided. It’s difficult to find a link to a story in a language you don’t read. Nonetheless, it was a trustworthy source.]

Sounds like the police and fire personnel were busy all night in Rosengård:

Last night, the police were subjected to stone throwing in Rosengård, a district of Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden.

The first incident was sparked by an incident with a young man armed with a sword. As the police began filling out an incident report on his activities, a group of young people began throwing stones at the officers. The police stated they then backed off in order to “calm down the situation.” [That strategy worked as well as it always does with disorderly crowds, especially adolescents]

Soon gang reinforcements arrived and by 8:30 p.m. at least fifteen teenagers were engaged in throwing stones, eggs, and bottles. When they set fire to a storage shed, the fire department arrived and met the same treatment. The fire personnel said “because of…the current violence and disturbances in the area [we] will wait for police backup before we enter the area…”

By 11:00 p.m. two storage facilities were blazing. A large contingent of police officers arrived, which allowed the fire department to get near enough to the conflagrations to extinguish the fires.

Stone-throwing started again, but no one was hurt and no arrests were made.

An hour later [wash, rinse, repeat]…another storage facility was torched; the firemen went in with police backup and put out the fire. Due to the necessary wait for police, the fire grew larger and additional units had to be called in to deal with the blaze.

Meanwhile, a nearby store was attacked with stones and again the police came, only to be subjected again to a barrage of rocks. [Repeat after me: no arrests were made]

Jihad Watch was on the story last night, but I could find not one mention of this anywhere in the international news outlets. JW has The Local newspaper version now, but T.L. didn't have the story up last night. Scroll down the Jihad Watch page to see the earliest version, and links to Patrick Perrson Press pictures. What is it about arson and adolescent males?
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Maybe mayhem in Malmö simply isn’t considered breaking (so to speak) news. If it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t lede, and fires aren’t enough to rate a mention anymore. If it’s Saturday night in Rosengård, there’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight…or however the old song went.


I was going to give you just the original lyrics of that song, written in the 1880’s after the Chicago fire. Remember Mrs. O’Leary and her cow?

Late one night, when we were all in bed,
Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in the shed.
Her cow kicked it over,
Then winked her eye and said,
“There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!”

In my googling, I ran across this variation, supposedly sung by children in Winnipeg in the 1940’s:

One, two, three, the cops are chasing me.
Four, five, six, they’re chasing me with sticks.
Seven, eight, nine, they chase us all the time,
There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight

However, that childhood ditty is not a variation of the Chicago song, but a take-off on a number Bessie Smith made famous. This one was composed by Joe Hayden and Theodore Metz ten years after the Mrs. O’Leary version. Obviously, they describe a different scene entirely:

Come along get you ready, wear your brand, brand new gown,
For there’s goin’ to be a meeting in that good, good old town
Where you know-ded everybody and all know-ded you,
And you’ve got a rabbit’s foot to keep away the hoo-doo.
When you hear that the preachin’ does begin,
Bend down low for to drive away your sin,
And when you get religion, you want to shout and sing
There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight, my baby.

verse 2:

There’ll be girls for everybody in that good, good old town,
For dere’s Miss Consolation Davis and there’s Miss Gondolia Brown,
And dere’s Miss Johanna Beasly, she am dressed all in red,
I just hugged her and I kissed her and to me, then, she said:
“Please, oh please, oh do not let me fall.
“You’re all mine, and I love you best of all;
“And you must be my man, or I’ll have no man at all.
There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight, my baby.”

It makes you wonder…if those teenagers in Malmö had some Swedish-Somalian version of gangsta rap, would they be out throwing stones and making mayhem?

Probably. Unfortunately, not all music has powers to soothe the savage breast. Rap sure doesn’t.

I know, I know, not everyone considers this genre to be “music.” However, its very wealthy performers would disagree with you. Snoop Dogg says he’s an artist, man. Just ask him.