56 arrested during Helsinki riot
Anyone have any photos?
Finnish police arrested Thursday 56 demonstrators at Helsinki’s annual Night of the Arts festival, according to Chief Inspector Jukka-Pekka Lämsä Friday.
The detained demonstrators were participating in a march promoting graffiti art. According to the police, some of the 100-200 participants on the march set off fireworks, smeared walls with graffiti and broke a few shop windows in the centre of town.
Hat tip to FinnFreak for the photos!
http://www.hs.fi/kuvat/iso_webkuva/1135221202314.jpeg
http://kuvat2.iltasanomat.fi/iltasanomat/iDoc/1224007-taiteidenyö468.jpg
http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/rahinataideHM_uu.jpg
Comment by FinnFreak — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 12:31 pm
http://www.hs.fi/kuvakoosteframe/1135221067404
Comment by FinnFreak — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 12:33 pm
As long as the police did arrest rioters that were more so doing some vandalism, rather than just protesting, I have to give a thumbs up to da police ^^
Comment by Kezonat0r — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 1:43 pm
Kick some hippie ass!
Comment by Cartman — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 1:56 pm
Great! If I remember correctly, the Helsinki Police have a special anti-grafiti unit and they probably managed to arrest a couple people that they were searching for.
Lets see if they follow through and send them the jail for a couple months.
Comment by Fred Fry — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 2:34 pm
Graffitti was big in Balitmore back in the 80’s, then it died. I’m not sure why. I think the city stopped cleaning it all up, and there was so little un-graffittied space anywhere. Also, I think the kids started smoking weed way younger, and the potheads don’t bother with the graffitti, too lazy I guess, and don’t need to risk visits from the cops.
Comment by Phil — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 3:42 pm
Here’s some select pieces of the “art” they left behind:
http://mirror2.hege.li/enyc/katutaideidenyo/
Comment by Zark — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 4:44 pm
Cool! Hope they kicked the crap out of them.
Comment by Peter Elk — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 5:20 pm
We need an imaginative and creative street artist like Banksy to get some recognition to the art form. Now it’s just drunk teenagers messing around. I’ve seen some very nice stickers though. On the positive side stickers are much easier to remove too.
Comment by m — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 6:46 pm
I really enjoy the expression of the police officer on the bottom picture.
Comment by Sam — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 7:07 pm
They were apparently arrested down the street from my house. I was just about to take the dog out when there were a lot of loud, angry voices in the street and I decided to wait until morning to avoid the usual ‘night of the broken glass’ crowd. If that was their idea of ‘art’, I’m glad they arrested them. They should force them into removing all that shitty graffiti from around the city….while sober….as punishment.
It’s getting to the point where just about any public event is marred by drunk assholes behaving badly.
Comment by hfb — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
That police officer in the 3rd picture looks pretty freaky. BIG eyes.
Comment by Mo — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 7:36 pm
hfb: Relax! Try this:
http://pbskids.org/teletubbies/teletubbyland.html
No drunks, nasty people or anything unpleasant there! Sort of like…gated community! What are you, one of the original Stepford Wives ?
“It’s getting to the point where just about any public event is marred by drunk assholes behaving badly.”
Well, at least our drunken fatherland future hopes have a pretty good public education and actually can locate countries like Iraq and Australia on the map. “Ellun kanat” comes to mind….
Comment by tim73 — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 7:49 pm
Amazing how much damage they managed to create in such a short time. They should sit in jail until it’s all cleaned up. I don’t suggest making them do it as they probably can’t do real work for sh*t.
Comment by Fred Fry — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 8:01 pm
Yeah, they tagged everything inside of Kamppi Center and broke one of the OnOff electronics store’s glass security panels. I got there right after it happened.
I’ve seen worse things in other countries though, like burning cars and throwing gas bombs at police. Finland is mild in comparison.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 8:58 pm
Fred…well, there were over 100 or so of them that the news story claimed and, from what passed by my window, it was a large angry crowd capable of a lot of damage in a short amount of time. There’s nothing wrong with giving them a real skill like scrubbing to go along with the drinking and geography.
Comment by hfb — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 9:00 pm
Ah…The police has to face a lot of angry parents, who don’t like to see the munchkins arrested and their permanent markers and spray cans confiscated. I remember few cases, when the daddy had to compensate some cleaning work for HKL and the chutzpah some people have is something amazing.
Hmmm..one pluspoint to my current job: No flying bottles and smearing passengers on the night of the pissing arts.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
Antti, Antti, antti: You like spanking?
Comment by tim73 — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 10:59 pm
Heh, noo, but Winter’s ‘munchkin’ is funny word for the mom’s little juvenile delinquents.
My kids settle quite well with the ‘look’ and in the case of more severe civil disobedience, physical transportation to the ‘time-out chair’ in Koijärvi style.
And if later on they get caught smearing buses, I will pay the damage, suspend their weekly allowances and ground them for one month without howling, how it was bloody mulquist driver’s or society’s fault and demand the confiscated paints to be returned. (Yes, these people exist.)
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Fri, Aug 25th, 2006 @ 11:25 pm
When I think those tags are supposed to be ‘artistic expression’ I realise how art can go… kapakka
Comment by Urmas — Sat, Aug 26th, 2006 @ 10:52 am
>Nevertheless, they should find the worst ones and just execute them
>if possible.
Execute them??? It’s just PROPERTY, fergadssakes! What do you want to do if someone from abroad insults Tarja Halonen, for example - nuke their fucking country, huh?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m as much against such moronic conduct as everyone else. It’s just that comments like this reek of fascism, plain and simple!
Or, in other words, jäitä hattuun nyt saatana siellä >:(
Comment by AnonyMeaCulpa — Sat, Aug 26th, 2006 @ 11:15 am
Off-topic, but speaking of Helsinki police, I recently saw the Helsinki Police Choir perform a concert at Finnfest (Finn Grand Fest) 2006 (the big annual Finnish-American festival). Their musical professionalism and prowess was really quite surprising and impressive. And they (especially the leader) were *so* very proper with their mannerisms that they were quite endearing.
Interesting (and somewhat odd?) that the Helsinki police department has a choir, and a very professional one at that….
Comment by Anonymous — Sat, Aug 26th, 2006 @ 4:39 pm
The Helsinki police department has a big band as well.
Comment by Hank W. — Sat, Aug 26th, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
The New York Polic Department has an Irish-style marching band, complete with bagpipes.
Comment by Finnpundit — Sun, Aug 27th, 2006 @ 4:44 am
Execute them??? It’s just PROPERTY, fergadssakes!
It is not just property. Mobs are intimidating and reduce the inhabitants’ personal freedom. Like hfb said, she decided to wait until the next morning to take the dog out. I do not like my home town being controlled by drunken mobs. I want it back.
Comment by Freeridin' Franklin — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 12:58 am
“Execute them??? It’s just PROPERTY, fergadssakes!”
Was kidding about that–I even asked Phil to remove it (thanks Phil). Actually, I was just parroting what my dad said. He wasn’t kidding though.
Franklin is right. They take away everyone else’s freedom. IMO, the cops and courts should deal with them in the most effective way possible.
“What do you want to do if someone from abroad insults Tarja Halonen, for example - nuke their fucking country, huh?”
I’d nuke them with praise
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 2:55 am
All this haughty taughty “these kids are bad news, etc.” aside; has anyone bothered to ask the kids WHY they are so upset?
I mean they did it in France (eventually) last spring during the ethnic riots… Is it because they are Finnish kids that they don’t count? Had they been foreign kids (ie disenfranchised by default) would there have been a task force formed to do something besided kick punk ass?
Comment by SUPERinfer — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 10:38 am
In cases like France, there seem to be slightly more plausible reasons behind the discontent—the ethnic riots are one example. The student riots that followed also had tracable reasons.
Sometimes I think Finnish kids do these types of things because they see it somewhere else. So they just want to copy it.
You know, come to think of it, I might just riot about our high taxes and prices. THAT’S actually a good reason—better than any other reason I’ve ever seen in Europe.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 12:40 pm
“Sometimes I think Finnish kids do these types of things because they see it somewhere else. So they just want to copy it.”
Kids don’t go out and get arrested for the fun of it. They may go out and vandalize etc. “for kicks,” but where do you come to the conclusion that Finnish kids don’t have any problems or issues and are just copycats.
If you think you have problems (taxes or the Mrs. is too bitchy lately), think what perhaps kids might have… for example, absent parents (who are working and arguing too much?)
This mass unemployment in Finland has got to stop too. Unless you are overtly-over-overthetop-educated in Finland, you have a hard time finding work.
It’s not as simple as some kind of copycat thing.
Comment by SUPERinfer — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 1:36 pm
>It is not just property.
OK, it isn’t. But still, EXECUTE them??? Get real ferfuckssakes!
I understand your indignation over what happened. But comments like “execute them” etc. still reek of fear and even worse lawlessness than what those idiots themselves perpetrated. Thus: calm down and let the cops and courts handle the case, OK?
Or would you rather respond to barbarism with even _worse_ barbarism like executions or whatever, eh? And do you happen to have any idea of what that (i.e. making martyrs out of those losers) might cause in the long run?
Haloo, jäitä hattuun edelleen!
Comment by AnonyMeaCulpa — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 2:04 pm
“Kids don’t go out and get arrested for the fun of it. They may go out and vandalize etc. “for kicks,†but where do you come to the conclusion that Finnish kids don’t have any problems or issues and are just copycats.”
Sure, they have issues. Many kids have issues. The distinguishing factor is how they express themselves, to which extreme, and where they get the idea for that expression. I could sooner understand if individual youngsters vandalized property, but this was a planned group event. I don’t think Finnish kids think-up such things in a vacuum. Finland is smart, but there just isn’t enough native talent for that kind of R&D. The idea was borrowedf from elsewhere.
And I’m glad it’s one area where we’re not on the cutting edge.
As I stated, the cops and courts should handle it. No doubt about that. But, I do question whether the current regime has a desire to curb such activity—or whether it sees benefit in letting some of it happen.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
“I don’t think Finnish kids think-up such things in a vacuum. Finland is smart, but there just isn’t enough native talent for that kind of R&D. The idea was borrowed from elsewhere.”
Whether you think Finnish kids thought this up on their own or not is not important. Whether they thought it up by themselves isn’t the point either.
The point is WHY? And if a batallion of armed-to-the-teeth-police-soldiers wasn’t enough of a deterrent to keep them from causing more damage, then why do you think the courts will have any effect?
The solution to curbing this, as you say, is not by pummeling them into submission when the kids are beer and cider buzzed, it is likely best to prevent the disdain for society in the first place.
How? Well, it seems these things have only recently begun to happen. Perhaps we are seeing the first generation that grew up in the LAMA, and see less and less prospects, opportunity and future to this so-called welfare society.
Comment by SUPERinfer — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
Preventing disdain for society is difficult when we have a government that sets the tone for usurping it.
And for the sake of protecting innocent people and their property, I do think that the cops should be more involved in preventing this kind of stuff—even if it means being heavy handed when necessary.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Mon, Aug 28th, 2006 @ 7:59 pm
“And for the sake of protecting innocent people and their property, I do think that the cops should be more involved in preventing this kind of stuffâ€â€even if it means being heavy handed when necessary.”
Bwaaaaahhhaahhhhh (sob sob) ahhhhhhaaaaaa (sniff sniff) Gettem Coppers!
You can tink whatcha want, but da raising of kids does NOT begin wit da cops.
Comment by cop killah — Tue, Aug 29th, 2006 @ 2:05 am
cop killah—heh heh
I didn’t say anything about raising kids. That’s a whole different topic. I’m talking about what to do when they endanger innocent people.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Tue, Aug 29th, 2006 @ 2:30 am