Man Arrested After Gang Shooting Left 12-Year-Old Girl Dead in Sweden

A makeshift memorial in form of a heart with candles and flowers is seen at the site where
STINA STJERNKVIST/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

A 31-year-old man has been arrested for murder following a gang-related shooting in the Swedish municipality of Botkyrka last year that left a 12-year-old girl dead.

The 31-year-old was finally taken into custody on Tuesday for the shooting, which saw 12-year-old Adriana caught in the crossfire and fatally wounded outside a local McDonald’s restaurant as she was walking her dog.

The 31-year-old, who has not been identified, is being charged on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in 16 cases, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.

The shooting is believed to have been motivated by gang violence and involved the “Botkyrka network” organised crime gang. The shooting was originally meant for other targets but 12-year-old Adriana happened to be in the same area.

Palle Nilsson, acting deputy regional police chief in Stockholm, commented on the shooting last year, saying that around 30 people in the Stockholm region were behind most of the serious gang crime incidents.

“These people are behind a large part of extortion, robbery, drug sales, shootings, explosions, and murders in the region,” he said.

Gun violence, particularly fatal gun violence, has become worse and worse in parts of Sweden in recent years.

Since 2018, the country of a little over 10 million people has seen at least 1,300 shootings, 169 of them fatal, while another 460 have led to injuries.

While most of the victims are adults, 12-year-old Adriana is not the only child who has been caught in the crossfire of gun violence.

Earlier this year in July, for example, two children in southern Stockholm aged just six and seven were struck by ricocheting bullets in another shooting that police believed was linked to criminal gang violence.

Police Commissioner Erik Nord of the Greater Gothenburg region has linked the rise in fatal shootings to mass migration.

“It is no longer a secret today that much of the problem of gang and network crime with the shootings and explosions have been linked to migration to Sweden in recent decades,” Nord said in July.

“When, like me, you have the opportunity to follow matters at the individual level, you see that virtually everyone who shoots or is shot in gang conflicts originates from the Balkans, the Middle East, North or East Africa,” he added.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com

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