Iceland review - 2015, Qupperneq 48

46 ICELAND REVIEW
Good Cop, Bad Cop
On the successes, failures and ongoing challenges of the police in Iceland.
By Zoë robert. PHoToS FRoM THE reykJavík MetroPolitan Police on inStagraM. ILLUSTRATIoN By erlingUr Páll ingvarSSon
The Reykjavík Metropolitan police
have managed to build up a large
online following through their
innovative and humorous approach to
social media. Former Reykjavík Chief of
police Stefán Eiríksson, under whom the
project began, attributed its success to,
among other things, the fact that police in
Iceland are unarmed and that the police
have a good relationship with the public. In
October, news broke that all this was about
to change: that cops in Iceland would start
carrying guns. although, the suggestion
that a policy change was on the horizon
was staunchly denied by police, the issue
brought up some pertinent questions about
the future of law enforcement in Iceland
and what sort of society Icelanders envision
and strive for. The police’s image was put
to the test with some wondering how they
could manage to juggle playing both the
friendly cop most Icelanders have come to
know in recent years and the cop tough on
preventing crime—now armed with a semi-
automatic weapon.
a fareWell to arMS?
In October it was reported that roughly
250 Heckler & koch Mp5 9mm subma-
chine guns, with a rate of fire of 700 to 900
rounds per minute, had been acquired from
the Norwegian military. around 150 of the
guns were said to be on their way to the
National Commissioner of the Icelandic
police, and the remaining 100 intended
for the Icelandic Coast Guard for use
aboard its ships and for spare parts. Snorri
Magnússon, chair of the police Federation
of Iceland, explained that the police force
has had guns for many years—although
general police officers don’t carry them,
only have access to them—but needed
to renew its stock of weapons. Former
police officer and current Mp for the
Independence party Vilhjálmur Árnason
was among those who came to the police’s
defense, arguing that the Mp5 has only the
same capabilities as the Glock pistol, which
the police are already equipped with, unless
you change the settings, which he said the
police would never do. He described the
Mp5 as “a safer weapon, with a special aim-
ing device.”
The issue dominated headlines in Iceland
for weeks and was also covered by the
Norwegian press. apart from whether the
guns marked a major policy change in
the arming of police officers in Iceland,
there was much confusion about whether
the guns were a gift from the Norwegian
state, as officials in Iceland had claimed, or
whether they had been purchased, and if so
why parliamentarians and the police knew
nothing about it. From the beginning, the
Norwegians insisted that the guns were not
a gift—even though in 2011 Norway sent
50 submachine guns to Iceland without a
request for payment—stating that a bill was
on its way. If it turned out they were not
a gift, they would be returned, director of
the Icelandic Coast Guard Georg lárusson
responded.
according to Halla Bergþóra Björnsdóttir,
head of the Icelandic association of police
and police commissioner in akranes, West
Iceland, the decision as to whether police
in different regions of Iceland would have
access to the guns, and whether they would
be kept at the local police station or in
police cars, would be at the discretion of
the police commissioners of each region.
In an interview with RÚV in October, she
however pointed out that the association
had not yet debated the issue and that
therefore a decision on the matter had yet
to be made.
Snorri emphasized that there has been no
fundamental change in the police’s policy
on carrying weapons, contrary to sugges-
tions by newspaper DV, which broke the
original story. Because Iceland neither has
a military nor national guard, it’s important
for the country to possess the equipment
necessary to respond to potential threats,
he argued.
PUblic backlaSH
The idea didn’t sit well with much of
the public and the matter led to a major
backlash. around 9,000 people ‘liked’ a
Facebook page ‘Return the Guns’ set up
in protest over the issue and it was among
those highlighted at a series of anti-govern-
ment protests in November.
In the end, and after it became clear
that Iceland would indeed have to pay
for them, the guns were returned, but
that didn’t put an end to the discussion.
Jón Bjartmarz, chief superintendent at the
National Commissioner of the Icelandic
police, told national broadcaster RÚV that
it was important for the police to have