Mugged by Reality in Groruddalen

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer sends a translated account of muggers who increasingly target young ethnic Norwegians in a culturally enriched area of Oslo. The translator includes this explanatory note:

I have translated an article from Document.no concerning the numerous muggings taking place in Groruddalen, an area in the eastern part of Oslo with a high non-Western immigrant population.

I wonder what the capital is going to look like in 2025 when the immigrant population is set to rise to 50 percent of the overall population of Norway.

I’ve been told that Alaska has large areas uninhabited areas and a climate similar to Norway’s. Maybe non-socialist ethnic Norwegians should contemplate crossing the pond once again…?

The translated article from Document.no:

Muggers targeting youths, a growing problem in Groruddalen

By Rubb
February 24, 2012

In the last 12 months the local newspaper for Groruddalen, Akers Avis, has run several stories about the numerous muggings occurring in the valley. What characterizes these incidents is that they are brutal, and that the victims in the majority of the cases are youths. In an article published on February 24, the newspaper confirms what many of us have suspected for some time now: the number of cases where muggers are targeting young people is on the rise. Growing up in Groruddalen can be riskier than we would like to admit.

People are encouraged to be careful with alcohol in order to protect themselves, but in a civilized society people shouldn’t be afraid of being attacked simply for being intoxicated.

Akers Avis has contacted two of the victims:

“Five or six boys came and sat down next to me. One of them put his hand in my pocket and grabbed my iPhone. I reacted to this and asked him what he wanted. He told me to relax and put the phone in his own pocket.”

“When I tried to get it back he started threatening me and told me that he had a knife. I ran away and called the police,” the 15-year-old says in a message to the newspaper via an internet forum.

The same gang have committed several other muggings in other areas of Groruddalen, such as Grorud and Ammerud.

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“He was obviously out to cause trouble. I was being threatened and discovered that several people had surrounded me. The 20 year old punched the man in front of him and managed to knock him down, but before he could do anything else someone knocked him down from behind. When he came to the robbers had left and taken his personal belongings.”

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And this weekend it happened again. A young intoxicated male was punched and knocked down when he disembarked a bus in Grorud. The boy does not wish to be interviewed.

Police confirm that the number of muggings in Groruddalen currently remains at a stable level, but according to Akers Avis incidents where youths are being targeted is on the rise.

The chief of Stovner police station, Espen Aas, reveals that approximately 100 muggings occur each year in Groruddalen. He emphasizes that this doesn’t constitute a mugging epidemic, and adds that the numbers don’t change much from year to year.

Very little is mentioned about the background of the muggers, but those who have been active around Groruddalen and Ammerud have earlier been described as Somalis by Akers Avis.

“There are different types of muggings, and there are different types of muggers. Our experience is that whenever we apprehend people for this type of behaviour we tend to notice a drop in the overall number of muggings at least in the short term,” Aas says. He’s especially worried about the brutality displayed in some of the cases, and he stresses that the police are prioritizing these cases. The robbers responsible the muggings in Grorud and Ammerud have been apprehended.

The newspaper article from Akers Avis is currently not available online.

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.