Norwegian Police Sees Only Shooting in 8 months (actually, longer)
Reports came in this morning that Norwegian police had been involved in a “shootout” with GTA suspects at a gas station in small town Roa, in eastern Norway.
The regular Norwegian police has been armed on a full time basis – temporarily – since November of last year, due to “national security concerns”, but up until about 2 am local time this mroning, there have been no cause to fire on anyone, in any district, town, municipality, village or city in the entire country.
Norwegian police say that the cause of this incident was that a regular patrol from one district was looking for a suspected stolen vehicle/stolen plates, when the car in question ran from them. Instead of initiatin a hazardous chase, the patrol searched for the car, crossed municipality lines (which is not uncommon in Norway), and found the vehicle, driver and passenger at a gas station. When the officers approaced the suspects, the driver opened fire. Fire was returned, the driver wounded and taken to hospital. The passenger was taken into police custody.
Shootings is an extremely rare occurrence in Norway, even though gun ownership is not. Illegal firearms, handguns and exotic weapons are, however, rare, and up until November of last year, police officers did not carry firearms full time, but had them available in their vehicles, subject to approval before use.
In stark contrast to the US, for example, Norway has a minute number of officer involved shootings, and when they do occur, suspects are wounded, not killed, the number of shots fired is minimal, and police officers are very rarely on the receiving end of any injuries at all.
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