The civil and human rights group Civil Rights Defenders is calling for a new law to clarify when police are allowed to use deadly force, four days after police shot a man to death in his apartment in a Stockholm suburb.Police say they were forced to fire on the 67-year-old man who was threatening them with a machete in an apartment in Husby, west of Stockholm. But critics say the police overreacted.
This is the sixteenth time since 1995 that police have shot and killed a person.
"The rules on the books today don't meet the international standards for human rights," Robert Hårdh, the head of Civil Rights Defenders, tells Swedish Radio news.
Hårdh says the laws are too vague and fail to clearly explain when police can use violence. He does not think that police and citizens should be protected under the same right to self-defense.
"It's not appropriate that police, with their monopoly on violence, should lean on that law," says Hårdh. "Instead we need specific legislation for handling firearms."
But Per Engström, who sits on the National Police Board, disagrees with tightening the laws on self-defense for police. He says when police use deadly force, it means that "an opponent has closed you into a corner, so you have no other possibility than to protect your life."
Engström says police are constantly reviewing how they handle their weapons. Among other measures, he says the incident reports for weapon discharges are now more detailed. And he says the first step is to work harder with police so they never end up in the dangerous situations in the first place.
