[Norwegian]Police chief quits, ‘lacked support’

NewsinEnglish.no ^ | 16 August 2012 | Nina Berglund

[bjorn14]

State Police Director Øystein Mæland has become the first casualty of this week’s scathingly critical report on how Norwegian police failed to efficiently respond to last year’s terrorist attacks in Norway. Mæland announced his resignation just as leaders of Norway’s political parties were launching a debate of their own over the report on Thursday night.

Øystein Mæland resigned his position as head of Norway's state police on Thursday, saying he lacked enough clear support from the government that hired him just last year. PHOTO: Justisdepartementet Mæland’s resignation came just hours after police officers themselves had said they fully supported both him and his response to the report, which blasted police for poor communications and leadership. Many lives could have been saved, according to the independent report, if police had done a better job of stopping the terrorist who carried out a massacre on the island of Utøya after first bombing government headquarters in Oslo.

[bjorn14]

One of the most damaging parts of the report was that some police actively tried not to go to the island showing immense cowardice. Hopefully, PM Jens Stoltenberg will follow him out the door.

[pepsionice]

After reading through the various reports that went public....it was a comical episode. The helicopter that would have taken at least three guys out there....had a crew on vacation, with no back-up crew. When cop crew or two arrived at the pier to look for a launch to get out there...nothing much was suited for this. This would eventually find some local guy who agreed to boat them out there on his own vessel. You can imagine the first three or four cops out there....all expecting a force of at least five people or more....with the odds going against them. I’m pretty sure that no one wants to ever put this all into a movie, yet it’d make a fairly interesting piece.

[muawiyah]

None of them were armed either ~ so what kind of government sends its cops up against an armed man shooting people and they have no weapons.

[pepsionice]

I’ve spent three vacations up in Denmark in my life...all two-weeks each. With the exception of one day that I spent in Copenhagen....I never saw a policeman a single time out of the weeks I was there. In some towns of 20k residents...I doubt if there are four cops on duty at any given time.