Many fires in Eskilstuna – police officers attacked
Numerous fires have flared up in Eskilstuna in a short time – whereupon police and firefighters who pulled out have been attacked. A first suspicion is that everything has been coordinated.
TT 
Lots of fire alarms have been called in Eskilstuna. Stock Photography.Picture: Fredrik Sandberg/TT The first fire alarms began to ring in at 10 pm on Sunday evening. Within an hour, there were about ten alarms and just before midnight, new ones were called in. – We have more than 20 cases of fires. They have tampered with cars and a caravan and thrown Molotov cocktails at the police units, says police officer Laila Eriksson to TT. – We aim to stop the criminal attack so that we can secure the workplace for rescue services, so that it can do its job. According to SVT, three people have been arrested, suspected of vandalism and the police have called in national reinforcements. The fires are spread over almost the entire Eskilstuna municipality. Both the police and the rescue service have raised suspicions that the whole thing is in sync. – We have had a bit of a rough time this evening, you could say. It is cars, motorhomes and caravans that are on fire, says the rescue service's internal commander Roger Ehrstedt to TT at half past twelve – It is ordinary car fires, but they are many and geographically spread over the city. This seems to be coordinated. The police suspect that the whole thing may be a kind of diversionary maneuver, as a result of an alarm earlier in the evening when someone had seen a man with a gun in Torshälla, north of Eskilstuna. – We went there and searched with several units and in connection with it started the fires in central Eskilstuna, says Laila Eriksson. As far as is known, no police, firefighters or civilians have been injured. – I hope that we and the units on site can survive. And of course the general public, it is they who suffer the most as it is their cars that are on fire, says Laila Eriksson, who sums it all up as “deeply tragic”. The police would like to hear testimonies of all kinds and ask people who have or may have seen something important to hear from.