Friday, February 26, 2010

Norwegian Police

Today while I was working I heard a helicopter circling above me. I stopped what I was doing and wondered what the hell was going on. Helicopters are an ominous sound for me. In Kansas City I lived in an apartment for two years that was across the street from a hospital. The helicopter landing pad was right next to my apartment. Every 20 minutes or so my windows would shake as the helicopter took off or landed. I usually thought of extreme situations of people dying. After that, before I moved away from Kansas City, I lived in a poor neighborhood in the East Side (which is to say "the black side") and I heard police helicopters daily. My roommates and I would run outside to watch who was being chased or searched, usually with feelings of anger and injustice.

So when I heard the helicopter flying around today, I wondered who was being chased or who was dying. There is no hospital nearby so I knew it wasn't trying to land or take off, so I thought, "police". Which made me stop and think that I haven't seen one sign of police since I have landed in Norway. I haven't seen a police car, I haven't seen police walking around. Is it because this is a pretty homogeneous country? I looked up some facts on the police department in Norway and I found some interesting facts: Norwegian police do not carry firearms on a daily basis, they keep them locked down in patrol cars, and if need arises they need to get permission from a police commissioner. From the years 1994-2004 the Norwegian police fired aprox 78 shots, 48 being during a bank robbery in 2004 (the Nokas Robbery... look it up). Most of the police belong to a union (Politiets Fellersforbund) and in March 2009, 4000 police officers paraded the streets of Oslo in a protest march to the Norwegian Parliament for the government's decision to control work hours. Sounds somewhat different than the police in the states.

I don't know exactly what the helicopter was doing today. Maybe it was the police searching for someone, but not to arrest but to save from being lost at sea. Usually when the police are circling in a helicopter it means they are trying to rescue someone. It could also have been sightseers taking pictures of the beautiful area.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting that the police don't carry guns. Makes me wonder what the gun laws are in Norway (maybe they don't need guns because the "bad guys" don't "own" guns).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Huh, I wonder? Maybe I should look that up too.... just did and found some interesting facts. I was going to post on here but too much to write. Look up norway + gun laws and read what wikipedia has to say.

    Which also makes me wonder how many "bad guy" in the states carry guns?

    ReplyDelete