A couple in their twenties was arrested late on Sunday evening in relation to a shooting incident in the capital’s Breidholt district at 4:30 am on November 15. A man wearing a ski mask, armed with a shotgun, shot at a resident when he answered his door.
Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
The gunman hit the man in the face with the handle of the gun before he started shooting. However the man managed to close the door before the shots were fired, Fréttabladid reports.
According to chief constable Fridrik Smári Björgvinsson, the suspected shooter has been sentenced to custody until Friday. The woman, who was arrested, has been released.
The man who was attacked lives alone and didn’t know the shooter.
However, according to Fréttabladid’s sources, they have an indirect connection as the victim used to be the shooter’s fiancée’s employer. She was laid off and the shooting is suspected to be an act of revenge.
The gunman has confessed to the shooting but his motive remains unclear. It has also not been determined whether his intention had been to injure the man when he answered the door.
Criminologist Helgi Gunnarsson, who is a professor in social sciences at the University of Iceland, said the motives behind such a crime should be researched, although no generalizations can be made on increased anger and violence in society because of one example.
“The motive has not been determined,” Gunnarsson pointed out, suggesting, “Maybe he was trying to impress his fiancée.”
The criminologist added that the attack does have an air of desperation. He explained that it is known that after sudden changes in society, as happened in Iceland with the banking collapse, a feeling of unison is sensed at first and then, after the impact of these changes affect the lives of certain individuals, it develops into something else.
“Some people lose their jobs and cannot pay their bills and then desperate measures can be expected. Sudden changes in society have an impact on the community and some groups in society have difficulty facing them.”
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