A total of 36 people have been prosecuted for violent Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2020 in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest.
The charges include rioting, sabotage against first responders, vandalism, violence against civil servants, and assault, the local newspaper Göteborgs-Posten reported.
“Participants have kicked, hit and thrown stones and other objects at the police and their vehicles”, chamber prosecutor Elisabeth Trouvé said, as quoted by the newspaper.
The riots in question occurred on 7 June 2020, at a time when massive demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement were being held across the globe.
Following the official part, which went smoothly, the crowd continued to march through the city, whereupon the protests degenerated into a violent riot, the Public Prosecutor's Office said.
According to police investigator Anna Kildebo, a large number of minors were present.
“Many parents were unaware that their children were in the middle of the action”, Kildebo said.
In total, the police have gone through 145 hours of film material from the personnel's body cameras and drones as well as other footage, including shop cameras.
According to police investigator Anna Kildebo, a large number of minors were present.
“Many parents were unaware that their children were in the middle of the action”, Kildebo said.
In total, the police have gone through 145 hours of film material from the personnel's body cameras and drones as well as other footage, including shop cameras.
The Black Lives Matter movement, initially founded in 2013 in the United States, mushroomed overseas in the summer of 2020, as massive rallies were held across the globe against police brutality in the US, including the deaths of African-Americans George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
All in all, millions of people have taken part in BLM protests in the US and around the world, many of which turned violent and featured throwing rocks against police and emergency vehicles, assault and battery, looting and arson, resulting in major losses for businesses and communities. Still, mainstream media described them as largely unaggressive, including arguably the most egregious example of CNN captioning footage of a burning building as “fiery but mostly peaceful protests”.