There’s a lot of mental gymnastics going on over this incident on New Year’s Eve.
I believe that those who are more honest in the police dept. are trying to ring the bell, while their political peers (those in the higher echelon of the dept.) trying to stuff the toothpaste already squirted back into the tube.
Police chief: Different perspectives behind mixed messages on New Year’s Eve crime
Members of the public were left scratching their heads Thursday over seemingly conflicting views of alleged criminal activity on New Year’s Eve. Helsinki police said they saw similarities between cases of large groups of men robbing and molesting women in Finland and Cologne, Germany. However the National Bureau of Investigation said there were no links between the two incidents.
National police chief Seppo Kolehmainen explained the apparently contradictory views that emerged Thursday by saying that Helsinki police and the National Bureau of Investigation are reviewing the cases from different perspectives.
“The Helsinki police department was responsible for operative field action on New Year’s Eve, the NBI is responsible for preliminary investigations, so the viewpoints are different,” Kolehmainen said.
The top cop added that the arrest of six men at a Kirkkonummi asylum seeker reception centre was based on police information about planned criminal activity. He added that this was the reason why police intervened to get to the bottom of the matter.
On New Year’s Eve police arrested six men from the Aavaranta asylum seeker reception centre in Kirkkonummi on suspicion of inciting crime. However they were released one day later.
Contradictory views from Helsinki PD, NBI
On Thursday Helsinki police issued a statement in which they had broken up a gathering of more than 1,000 Iraqi asylum seekers who had congregated in the tunnel at Helsinki’s central railway station. They said they had removed dozens of people from the scene and detained several.
The police statement said that the situation had “possible parallels with what has been in the news about men who convened at a train station in Cologne”.
Later that day, NBI Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Alfgren appeared to contradict that view, saying that a preliminary investigation gave no reason to suggest that there were any links between the two events.
Police chief Kolehmainen would not offer any comment on possible similarities between the incidents in Cologne and Helsinki, saying that was for an investigation to decide.
“According to the law on preliminary investigations the results of an investigation must be communicated by the lead investigator,” he noted.
Kolehmainen said that the investigation would be national in scope.
