The tragedy was the final straw.

A 39-year-old Polish man was shot dead in Stockholm on Wednesday night after a confrontation with young members of a local gang. The man and his son were cycling towards the local swimming pool in Skärholmen, southern Stockholm, when they were confronted by a gang of young people near an underpass.

Mikael Janicki a Polish immigrant to escape communism, who moved to Sweden. He was out riding his bicycle with his 12 year old son in Stockholm, aiming to go swimming.

A migrant gang were acting thuggishly & he asked them to behave. They fatally shot him in the head. pic.twitter.com/XOhDb97x5C

— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) April 11, 2024

The inexplicable attack has brought the rise of criminal gang activity to the forefront of the country’s political discourse.

Sweden has experienced a record number of shootings in recent years, correlating with a dramatic rise in criminal gang activity primarily in its major cities. Many of the criminal gangs are dominated by foreign nationals who recruit Swedish minors to undertake high-risk work including drug deals and attacks on rival gangs. In September last year, Ardavan Khoshnood, a leading criminologist at Malmö University, described Sweden as the bombing capital of Europe, noting the Scandinavian nation is now second only to Mexico as the top country in the world not currently at war to experience the most bombings on its territory.

Fatal shootings have also sky-rocketed. In 2022, a total of 391 shootings were reported in Sweden, of which a record 62 were fatal, surpassing the 45 firearm fatalities recorded the previous year. Wednesday’s shooting was the third in Skärholmen within the last month alone, and locals are terrified of leaving their houses. Two other shootings in the area saw one man killed on March 1 near the scene of Wednesday’s attack, and a 25-year-old victim was hospitalized on March 13 after being shot at a preschool in the area.

„It is not enough to regurgitate platitudes, it is time for Sweden to declare full war against every single individual in these criminal gangs,”

– said Jimmie Åkesson, the leader of the Sweden Democrats who currently prop up the center-right Swedish government.

En tolvåring får se sin pappa bli skjuten i huvudet för att han står upp mot ett stökigt gäng. Politiskt är jag och Sverigedemokraterna beredda att göra precis allt för att det som hände i Skärholmen inte ska hända igen. Internationella konventioner, unkna gamla argument om…

— Jimmie Åkesson (@jimmieakesson) April 11, 2024