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Neighbour to Copenhagen gang hangout finds switchblade in his garden

TheCopenhagenPost
November 24th, 2016


This article is more than 8 years old.

Vanløse man hoping that a committee will have ideas about how to get the gangs out of residential neighbourhoods

Not your typical backyard garden tool (photo: Mike Searson)

Lars Georg Jensen lives on what used to be a quiet street in Copenhagen’s Vanløse district. Things have changed since a biker gang moved in next door.

“We are constantly afraid of a conflict starting,” Jensen told BT. “There are always small scale things happening. I have found a switchblade in my garden, but the real fear is that bullets will start to fly.”

Hoping for help
A committee formed by the justice ministry to deal with gangs living in residential neighbourhoods is expected to have recommendations in early December about how the bikers can be removed.

Things like Tuesday’s shooting at the Magasin in Lyngby – which police are investigating as gang related – put Jensen on edge.

“It’s part of our everyday lives,” he said. “On the one hand, you do not want to be unnecessarily afraid, on the other, it is a reality that every time there is a new conflict between biker groups, it is close to us.”

More than bad neighbours
Jensen, who is also chairman of the local homeowners’ association, has previously tried along with the Copenhagen municipality to get the bikers to move. That effort had to be abandoned for lack of a legal basis to intervene.

READ MORE: Pay or we’ll stay, gangsters tell residential neighbourhood

Jensen said that he and his neighbours are not just dealing with a typical crowd of rowdy young people.

“When you have gangs as neighbours, there are a lot of other things going on,” he said.

“For example, the obvious trade of people coming and going, windows being rolled down and packages exchanged.”


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”