Shooting in Reykjavík: Young Female Seriously Injured

A young female and her boyfriend were shot early on Thursday outside their home in the east of Reykjavík. The two men thought to be responsible were arrested the same morning in an extensive police operation that involved about 80 officers, among them, the special forces of Iceland, usually called the Viking squad.

You can now take walking tours of Reykjavík with Grapevine crewmembers Valur, Pollý and Bjartmar. Click here for more details.

The shooting happened around 04:00 on Thursday morning and according to the news station, Channel 2/Vísir.is, the men used a handgun in the assault. The woman was shot in the belly but her boyfriend suffered a foot injury. The people were rushed to the hospital. The woman is seriously injured but is not believed that she is in a critical state.

One of the men that were arrested was an ex-boyfriend of the woman but the police say it’s too soon to confirm the reasons for the attack.

Both men, that are in their 20s, are well-known criminals in Iceland, but the one that is suspected of gun shooting, became infamous for being the youngest criminal in jail in Iceland when he got sentenced at the age of fifteen.

This news is very ominous for the Icelandic public for the reason that it’s just around one year since a man executed another man outside of his home, with a gun. That man was sentenced for the murder late last year. Another man was arrested in Egilstaðir, in East of Iceland last year, when he rampaged in a small neighbourhood and shot at houses and cars until he himself was shot by the local police. The man survived the gun wound and has been charged for the incident.

Gun crimes are very rare in Iceland and the police said in an interview on Channel 2 that they were seriously concerned about this development in the Icelandic crime world.