The Abominable Man (11 page)

On the afternoon of Saturday the 14th of this month, I was on the sidewalk outside the entrance to number 15 Pontonjärgatan together with my five-year-old daughter.

We were waiting for my wife, who was visiting an invalid in the building. To pass the time, we were playing tag on the sidewalk. There was no one on the street as far as I can remember. It was, as I said, a Saturday afternoon and the stores were closed. Consequently I have no witnesses to what occurred.

I had tagged my daughter, lifted her up in the air and had just put her down on the sidewalk when I discovered that a police car had stopped at the curb. Two patrolmen got out of the car and came up to me. One of them immediately grabbed my arm and said, “What are you doing to the kid, you son of a bitch?” (To be fair, I should add that I was casually dressed in khaki pants, windbreaker and a cap, all of it clean and fairly new to be sure, but I may nevertheless have looked shabby to the patrolman in question.) I was too astonished to say anything right away. The other patrolman took my daughter by the hand and told her to go find her mother. I explained that I was her father. One of the patrolmen then twisted my arm behind my back, which was extremely painful, and shoved me into the back seat of the patrol car. On the way to the station, one of them hit me with his fist in the chest, side and stomach, all the time calling me names like “child molester” and “dirty old bastard” and so forth.

Once at the station, they locked me in a cell. A while later the door opened and Chief Inspector Stig Nyman (I didn’t know who it was at the time, but found out later) came into the cell.
“Are you the guy who chases little girls? I’ll take that out of you,” he said, and hit me so hard in the stomach that I doubled up. As soon as I’d caught my breath I told him I was the girl’s father and he kneed me in the groin. He continued to beat me until someone came and told him my wife and daughter were there. As soon as the Chief Inspector understood that I had been telling the truth, he told me to go, without apologizing or in any way attempting to explain his behavior.

I wish hereby to draw your attention to the events described and to request that Chief Inspector Nyman and the two patrolmen be held to account for this mistreatment of a completely innocent citizen.

Sture Magnusson, engineer

OFFICIAL REMARKS:
Chief Inspector Nyman has no recollection of the complainant. Patrolmen Ström and Rosenkvist claim to have apprehended the complainant on the grounds that he acted oddly and threatened the child. They applied no more force than was required to move Magnusson into and out of the car. None of the five patrolmen who were in the precinct station at the time admits to having witnessed any mistreatment of the complainant. Nor did any of them notice that Chief Inspector Nyman entered the detention cell and believe they can say he did not. No action.

The Justice Department Ombudsman

Stockholm

Last Friday, October 18th, I attended a party at the home of a good friend on Ostermalmsgatan. At about ten o’clock
P.M.
another friend of mine and I called a taxi and left the party to go to my apartment. We were standing in the entranceway, waiting for the taxi, when two policemen came walking down the other side of the street. They crossed the street and came up to us and asked us if we lived in the building. We answered that we did not. “Then move along, don’t hang around here,” they said. We said that we were waiting for a taxi and stayed where we were. The policemen then grabbed hold of us rather brusquely and pushed us out of the entranceway and told us to keep moving. But we wanted the taxi we’d ordered, and said so. The two patrolmen first tried to force us to move on by pushing us in front of
them, and when we protested, one of them took out his nightstick and started to hit my friend with it. I tried to protect my friend and so I too received several blows. Both of them now had their nightsticks out and were pummeling us as hard as they could. I kept hoping the taxi would come so we would be able to get away, but it didn’t come and finally my friend yelled, “They’ll beat us to death, we’d better get out of here.” We then ran up to Karlavägen where we took a bus to my apartment. We were both of us black and blue and my right wrist started to swell when we got home. It was badly bruised and discolored. We decided to report the incident at the police station where we supposed the two patrolmen had come from and took a taxi there. The two policemen were nowhere to be seen, but we were able to speak to a chief inspector whose name was Nyman. We were told to wait until the patrolmen came in, which they did at one o’clock. Then all four of us, the two policemen and the two of us, were called into Inspector Nyman’s office and we repeated our story of what had happened. Nyman asked the policemen if it was true and they denied it. The Chief Inspector naturally believed them and told us we had better watch out for trying to blacken the names of honest hard-working policemen, and that it would go hard with us if we did it again. Then he told us to get out.

I now wonder if Chief Inspector Nyman acted properly. What I have described is absolutely true, as my friend can testify. We were not drunk. On Monday I showed my hand to our doctor at work and he wrote the enclosed certification. We never found out the names of the two patrolmen, but we would recognize them
.

Respectfully,
Olof Johansson

Chief Inspector Stig O. Nyman recalls the incident. He claims he had no reason to doubt the testimony of Patrolmen
Bergman and Sjögren, as they had always shown themselves to be honest and conscientious. Patrolmen Bergman and Sjögren deny that they used their nightsticks against the complaintant and his companion, who, the patrolmen claim, were defiant and unruly. They gave the impression of being inebriated, and Patrolman Sjögren claims to have noticed a strong smell of alcohol from at least one of the men. No action.

The undersigned is a widow, employed, and the sole support of one child. The child is four years old and stays at a day-care center while I am at work. My nerves and health have been bad ever since my husband was killed in an automobile accident one year ago.

Last Monday I went to work as usual after leaving my daughter at the day-care center. Something happened at my place of work during the afternoon which I won’t go into here, but it left me very upset. The staff doctor, who is aware of the state of my nerves, gave me a hypo and sent me home in a taxi. When I got home it didn’t seem to me the sedative was having any effect, so I took two tranquillizers. I then went to get my daughter from the day-care center. When I’d gone two blocks, a police car stopped and two policemen got out and shoved me into the back seat. I was feeling a little drowsy from the medicine and it’s possible I staggered a little on the street, because I gathered from the policemen’s scornful way of treating me that they thought I was drunk. I tried to explain to them what the situation
was and that I had to pick up my child, but they only made fun of me.

At the police station I was taken to the chief who wouldn’t listen to me either but ordered them to put me in a cell “to sleep it off.”

There was a buzzer in the cell and I rang it again and again but no one came. I shouted and yelled that someone had to take care of my child, but no one paid any attention. The daycare center closes at six o’clock and the staff people naturally get uneasy if you haven’t picked up your child by then. It was five thirty when I was locked up.

I tried to attract someone’s attention in order to be allowed to call the day-care center and see to it that my child was taken care of. I was very upset about this.

I wasn’t let out until ten o’clock that night, and by that time I was beside myself with worry and desperation. I have not yet recovered and am now on sick leave.

The designated radio patrolmen are Hans Lennart Svensson and Göran Broström. They say they acted in good faith, as the woman appeared to be highly inebriated. Chief Inspector Stig Oscar Nyman claims the woman was so far gone she could not make herself understood. No action.

Dear J.O.,

Last Friday I got drunk and there’s nothing funny about that since I’ve got drunk before and when the police take me in I sleep it off in the stasion. I’m a peaceful man and don’t make no trouble. So now last Friday they took me in and I thought I’d get to bed down in a cell like usual, but I was sadly mistaken because a policeman I seen there before came into the cell and started to give me a beating. I was surprised because I hadn’t done nothing and this policeman he cursed and raised hell, I’m sure he’s the chief at the stasion, and beat me and shouted so now I want to report this police chief so he won’t do it again. He is a big tall man and has a gold stripe on his jacket
.

Respectfully
Joel Johansson

OFFICIAL REMARKS:
The complainant is known for countless drinking offenses, not only in the precinct in question. The policeman referred to would appear to be Inspector Stig Nyman. He claims he has never seen the complainant, whose name is however familiar to him. Inspector Nyman dismisses the suggestion that he or anyone else mistreated the complainant in his cell. No action.

My husband was born in Hungary and does not write Swedish well, so I, his wife, am writing this instead. My husband has suffered from epilepsy for many years and is now retired due to his illness. Because of his illness he sometimes has attacks and then he falls down, although he usually knows in advance when they are coming so he can stay at home, but sometimes he can’t tell in advance and then it can happen anywhere.
He gets medicine from his doctor, and after all these years we’ve been married I know how to take care of him. I want to say that there is one thing my husband never does and never’s done and that is to drink. He would rather die than taste strong drink.

Now my husband and I would like to report something that happened to him last Sunday when he was coming home from the subway. He had been out to see a soccer match. Then when he was sitting on the subway train he could tell he was going to have an attack and he hurried up to get home quick and as he was walking along he fell down and the next thing he knew he was lying on a bed in a prison. By now he was better but he needed his medicine and wanted to get home to me, his wife. He had to stay there for several hours before the police let him go because all the time they thought he was drunk which he absolutely was not since he never drinks a drop. When they let him out they made him go in to see the Inspector himself and he tells him that he is sick and not drunk, but the Inspector didn’t want to understand at all and says my husband is lying and he’d better stay sober in the future and that he has had enough of drunken foriegners which my husband is of course. But he can’t help it he speaks Swedish so badly. Then my husband told the Inspector that he never drinks and wether the Inspector misunderstood or whatever anyway he got mad and knocked my husband down on the floor and then picked him up and threw him out of the room. Then my husband got to come home, and of course I was terribly worried all evening and called all the hospitals but how was I to imagine the police would take a sick man and throw him into jail and then beat him up as if he was the worst criminal.

Now my daughter tells me, we have a daughter though she is married, that we can report this to Your Honor. When my husband got home it was past midnight although the game was over at seven o’clock.

Respectfully
Ester Nagy

OFFICIAL REMARKS:
The chief inspector named in the complaint, Stig Oscar Nyman, says he remembers the man, who was treated well and sent home as quickly as possible. Patrolmen Lars Ivar Ivarsson and Sten Holmgren, who brought Nagy in, claim that Nagy gave the impression of being dazed by alcohol or narcotics. No action.