Gang War: Pusher Street (2025) s01e01 Episode Script

1
[quiet dramatic music playing]
[Elsa] When it happened,
I can only remember
all of the screaming.
ELSA
TOURIS
All the screaming
and the gunshot, you know?
Everything was so beautiful
and good.
When I came out of the Stjerneskibet,
and I saw a little girl.
You know, it was just family people.
You know, people.
But then two men came walking
on my left side.
[gunfire]
And I
Yes, I I just didn't believe it,
but it was gun shooting.
Then I fall on the ground.
I was scared
and I thought I was dying.
You know, I thought they were
shooting after all the people
who were running.
It was like forever,
but it was only a few seconds.
So I thought then,
"Oh, my god. My son.
He is now going to be motherless."
I got shot.
[sniffles] You know
Yes, it's like that now.
[tense dramatic music playing]
[Larsen] What started
as an idealistic hippie dream
ended in a brutal nightmare.
[man] If there's demand for something
and there's money to make,
people like me
will swoop in and capitalize.
[Larsen] On one side are the drug dealers.
On the other side,
you have the combat-ready cops.
When we strike, we follow through.
[people shouting]
And in the middle are the Christianites.
SHAME
I felt like a hostage,
caught between drug dealers and cops.
[man] What the hell are you doing?
They wanted to hurt each other.
It was It was war.
We thought, "Fuck them."
I've been in situations, thinking,
"You're dead. You won't survive."
We got to the point
that we had always feared.
[gun blast]
Someone was shot dead
on Pusher Street.
That killing was the last straw, in the
decades of fighting over Pusher Street.
GANG WAR
PUSHER STREE
[quiet dramatic music playing]
[people chattering]
One evening in August 2023
CARSTEN NORTON
AUTHOR & JOURNALIS
a group of men
made plans for an assassination
to take place in Christiania.
All of these men had connections
to a street gang
that was known as Loyal to Familia.
Two of the men went on to play
crucial roles in the assassination.
When they arrived
in Christiania that evening
they were both riding
MATE bikes, electric bikes.
It was an important,
uh, advantage for them
how fast those MATE bikes go,
like lightning.
And they don't have license plates,
so they were not easily identified.
The two men took a side street
into Christiania,
on Bådsmandsstræde.
Just inside the entrance of the town
is a fairly large building
called Fredens Ark.
Somewhere along the outside
of the building,
they parked the two MATE bikes
and continue into town.
From Fredens Ark, they proceed
on foot to Pusher Street.
Then they headed over
to the Best and Cheapest stall
which is located by a building
called Stjerneskibet.
BEST & CHEAPES
There's a 30-year-old male.
He is a probationary member
of the Hells Angels,
what they call a "prospect."
And he is the target
of this assassination plot.
[gun cocks]
The two men pull out their guns
and start shooting
at the Hell's Angels prospect
as he's tending the stall.
He runs into the building,
the two Loyal to Familia members
follow him inside,
and proceed to fire shots in the cafe.
- [screaming]
- [gunfire]
The prospect was hit several
times with fatal shots.
As well as four bystanders,
people who just happened
to be there,
including an Icelandic tourist,
who was shot in the hand.
[siren blaring]
People were completely overwhelmed.
CARLO
CHRISTIANITE
It hit so close to home.
[Mathilde] A lot of the other times,
it happened in the evening or at night.
I got word quickly
that my neighbor, Ali, was hit.
MATHILDE
CHRISTIANITE
And that really worried me.
He was probably
the only Christianite on the street.
He was down there
and got shot several times.
He was actually
in life-threatening danger.
It was deeply shocking.
He was just in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
[Mathilde] The way it happened,
It's scary that they made it
all the way to the middle of Pusher Street
and just opened fire.
It's absolutely crazy.
They were so ruthless
that they were willing
to shoot innocent people.
It's a testament
to how absolutely,
completely cold-blooded it was.
We were so far gone
it couldn't get any worse.
The people of Christiania refused
to sit by while this happened.
[ominous music playing]
[Carlo] With all the violence
and intense stuff going on, the desire
for peace and control was the focus.
So we got to work to
to get it all shut down.
The dealers didn't have a say.
They couldn't defend it.
There was no way
for these groups to claim
that all they wanted to do
was sell marijuana.
They knew they couldn't go on.
[ethereal music playing]
[people cheering]
PUSHER STREET IS GONE
Freetown Christiania
has been transformed.
Hundreds of people
have gathered today in Copenhagen
to begin clearing
Christiania's longstanding
and infamous cannabis market,
Pusher Street.
We can walk freely now
and feel like it's ours again.
HULDA MADER
CHRISTIANITE
[Hummelgaard] Yeah,
this is the beginning of the end
of of organized gang crime,
the drug dealings
and the sociopathic bloodshed
PETER HUMMELGAARD - MINISTER OF
JUSTICE, SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
the violence,
and the all of the horrific killings.
- [quiet dramatic music playing]
- [sniffs]
For over 50 years, police have fought
to stop weed trade in Christiania.
IF YOU LOVE CHRISTIANIA,
BUY SOMEWHERE ELSE
But it ended up being the Christianites
themselves to shut down Pusher Street.
Pusher Street had become one
of the most dangerous areas in Denmark.
An area overrun and completely
taken over, by violent criminals.
POLICE
[explosion]
But the problems started long
before the existence of Pusher Street.
[dramatic music playing]
OLE LYKKE
CHRISTIANITE
Christiania was Copenhagen's
social dumping ground,
and it was treated as such
by police and other authorities.
In the late seventies, the Freetown
starts attracting people
who see the advantage
in being able to do things
like, for example, um conduct drug deals,
hide from the police, and such.
That problem is then thrust
onto regular Christianites
because it becomes an almost
lawless neighborhood
where dope shooters
and dealers just roam free.
And then, at the same time,
the people of Christiania
have a sneaking suspicion
that the city
is using Christiania as a junkyard,
of sorts, to offload unwanted
characters in society, at large.
It's never been proven,
but there is a long standing myth
in Christiania
that the police went
around telling all the drug dealers,
the junkies and other criminals in town,
that if they don't go to Christiania,
they will be arrested instead.
It is an indisputable
and statistical fact,
that the ratio of both drug users
and drug dealers
in the community of Christiania,
far exceeds the average
in the surrounding areas.
UNITED FRON
AGAINST JUNK!
[man] The drug trade that was going on
around the house has been stopped.
The people living in Christiania
who dealt drugs are being evicted.
[Norton] Internally, in Christiania,
they still want weed to be available.
FREDENS
ARK
"Free weed" has been
a well known mantra
from the time
the Freetown was first founded.
But by the end of 1979
FOR CHRISTIANIA
AGAINST JUNK
the people of Christiania
decided to organize
a movement against hard drugs.
[Lykke] The drug blockade
was a collaboration
between the activist community
and an association
called Support Free Weed.
They were able to work together
on getting rid of hard drugs.
We targeted people
who were doing hard drugs.
KURT NIELSEN
FORMER DRUG DEALER
Um I wore the slogan
"Say no to hard drugs"
on my, uh, Scott jacket. You could tear
off the patch. [mimics tearing sound]
So we had some made that said,
"Say no to hard drugs."
So, uh Yeah.
Back in the day.
I started going when I was about 13.
[clears throat]
It was full of hippies
and people smoking weed,
and it, uh, it wasn't so serious.
I could I could be myself.
It was kind of like Ungdomshuset.
There was a bunch
of people who were politically
passionate, and they put
their heart and soul in it.
Um in Christiania,
there were school teachers,
educated people, and artists, all kinds.
Um and they also liked
to smoke joints, you know.
And there was also, um
There was also
Well, the rest of us.
[Lykke] The weed trade was going on
in and around Woodstock
and the community kitchen.
Those were the two main centers.
There was a lot of trade happening
in the area known as Prærien,
which is the area from Pusher Street
to the main entrance
over on the corner of, uh,
Bådsmandsstræde and Prinsessegade.
The people dealing at Prærien
tended to be outcasts.
And recognized members
of the community
dealt at the kitchen or Woodstock.
[Nielsen] I made a thousand kroner
the very first day I sold a hundred grams.
I did that 20 days in a row,
and then I had 20,000.
It became my profession,
just like any other job.
WHOLESALER
I'm from Falster,
where drugs were taboo,
and the police targeted them.
I was surprised
by the openness in Christiania.
It was easy,
I brought a few processed buds,
traded three grams of weed
for one gram of hashish,
and took it to Falster, to sell.
[intriguing music playing]
[Larsen] As a countermeasure to the
growing cannabis trade in Christiania,
the police deployed a special force unit
that is regarded as hard-hitting
and extremely controversial.
A unit by the name Riot Squad.
RIOT SQUAD
[Jørgensen] 99% of the people
we dealt with
already had some kind
of a criminal record.
Violent offenders,
um killers, drug dealers,
and thieves all mixed together.
The Riot Squad
was a specialized police unit
that was created in the sixties.
This unit was specifically
meant to target anyone
involved in situations
connected to organized crime.
They would deploy the Riot Squad
in places where it was difficult
for the regular police to patrol.
The Riot Squad officers
would operate in plain clothes,
and often these specialized
units did a lot of solo work,
they worked very independently.
This attracted a certain kind of officer,
that's more headstrong
and willing to resort to methods
that probably, um,
wouldn't have been allowed
if they had been in uniform.
So, A lot of riot officers
got a reputation
for being rough and heavy-handed.
Right, you wanted me
to take these off.
Or they won't recognize me.
After I completed basic training,
MOGENS LAURIDSEN
RIOT SQUAD
I applied for the Riot Squad,
the first of February, uh, 1981.
When I started out, myself,
and about four other police officers
were pulled into a room.
Our bosses told us that they had
an assignment in Christiania,
and they needed volunteers.
It was an assignment
where we had to work undercover.
The next day, we got an apartment
on Prinsessegade to work out of.
We received intel on a few suspects
that were reportedly behind
the organized cannabis trade,
and our primary goal was
to infiltrate their operation.
To find out what was going on.
We would go out on daily walks
or "patrols" to see
who was out dealing.
We would report our findings
back to the squad,
then four of our guys
would be stationed in a car outside,
waiting for word from us that it was time
to come in and bust the deal.
It was a double whammy.
Working undercover
is about creating a profile,
so that you can go about your business
without being identified
as a police officer.
I got a leather jacket and borrowed
my little brother's motorcycle.
The challenge was
that we had police radios,
so we would be able
to communicate with our superiors,
if we ever found ourselves in trouble.
In some ways
that was good for safety,
but it's tricky because the radio is big,
which can make it very difficult
to, um, hide it under your clothes.
I was like,
"Damn, this could go horribly wrong."
We also had our sidearm. Just in case.
[Norton] The undercover mission unfolds
in an unforeseen way.
The operation is the first of its kind,
where you actually see how organized
the import of cannabis,
to Christiania, really is.
The main thing was to figure out
who the major players were
behind the organized cannabis trade.
We were able to install wiretaps
on a few different phone booths
around the neighborhood.
At one point we observed a Finnish girl
who went in and called the Netherlands.
She ordered 75 paintings
at 33,000 kroner a piece.
I'm not much of an art buff,
but it struck me as odd
that all the paintings happened
to be exactly the same price.
Then we started taking an interest
in that girl exclusively.
[intriguing music playing]
After 14 days, she left to pick up
another shipment with her boyfriend.
And we tried to put a tail on them.
Maybe it wasn't the best idea
to send the undercover cops
to do the tailing,
but that's what we did.
So we continued to tail
that Finnish girl and her boyfriend,
but when we got down to Ringsted,
they went through a roundabout.
It was suspicious to us that
they headed into such heavy traffic,
so we figured they spotted us.
Then they started driving back
to Copenhagen.
They were closing in on Christiania.
We said, "This, this this is no good."
We managed to pull them over
right before they got
to Christiania's main entrance.
We arrested them, and they had a bag
with 1.7 million Danish krone in the car.
At the same time, we send some
people to intercept the courier,
who's supposed to be coming
from Holland.
The gas tank in the car had a compartment
for 75 kilos of hash,
with the rest for gas.
GAS TANK - GAS - 75 KG HASH
That's not much, so they had to refuel
several times from Holland,
but it was a clever stash spot.
[Norton] That was the first time
you had proof
of the sophisticated import logistics,
which were more advanced than expected.
The police officers noted
how smoothly and professionally
the Dutch outfit operated.
They had been used
to more simple approaches,
like suitcases with hidden compartments
where the drugs would be stashed.
But now, um, you're seeing things
like customized cars,
and couriers who were better
at blending in,
and, um the drugs
were changing hands several times
along the way, from person to person.
It was much more advanced
and organized than expected.
Christiania, as the police saw it,
was always a hotbed for criminal activity.
Then, in the 1980s, a new phenomenon
emerges in Denmark.
Namely bikers.
[rock music playing]
The local punks have grown up.
They ride motorcycles and wear vests.
"Bullshit," they called themselves.
They took over Christiania.
Bullshit needs money.
Christiania is a great place
to make money.
They try to get into the kitchen,
and Woodstock.
They never really get in,
so instead they go sell
their weed at Prærien.
[Balther] When you went to Christiania
in the eighties and you walked in
JØRN BALTHER - DOCUMENTARY
FILMMAKER & CHRISTIANITE
you'd see all these leather um, vests
with "Bullshit" on the back.
They'd get in your face
and would start shoving you around,
going, "You want some weed?"
We would try to hurry past them
at the entrance.
KLAUS TUXEN
ACTIVIST & FOUND OF HEMP PARTY
They always sold terrible weed.
They were just, unpleasant, you know?
They'd say, "Buy weed from us."
We were like, "We don't want it."
"Sure, you want some weed."
"No, I don't. Get outta here."
"Watch your mouth, before I smack you!"
They were really nasty gritty guys,
I never bought from those idiots.
[tense music playing]
[Lykke] They couldn't get a place to stay.
They tried to take over some apartments
in Fredens Ark. It didn't work.
They got a few apartments
and also a workshop in Multimediehuset.
They also wanted
to have a clubhouse there,
but had to settle for one in Sundby.
[tense music playing]
They were always a problem because
their behavior was unacceptable.
They were violent, they started fights,
and there were always
all kinds of things like that.
[Andersen] There was
FLEMMING SLOTH ANDERSEN
RIOT SQUAD
There was Høvding, and there
was Pagaj Kaj, and there was Makrellen,
um, who all hung out there.
They were violent. We knew that.
It was immediately apparent that violence
came easy to them, second nature.
[Makrellen] We're currently
divided into two camps.
- [woman] Hm.
- There's Bullshit and the others.
[woman] You're a part of Bullshit.
Who are the others?
Yeah, they they're a club that calls
themselves the Hells Angels.
[woman] Okay.
[Makrellen] They're the enemy, basically.
Well, ya know, it says it on their backs.
They think they own Denmark.
Both biker clubs
are extremely territorial,
so they both want turf,
and to claim bars and clubs
and other places as their own,
so they can do their thing there
without running into the others.
And so they made agreements
on what parts of town belonged to whom.
There was no question about it:
Østerbro was Hells Angels' turf.
One night in September 1983,
several members
of the biker gang, Bullshit,
all decided to go to a bar
called Søpromenaden.
From the Hell's Angels' point of view,
it is unacceptable
that members from Bullshit are at a bar,
in Hells Angels territory.
Bent Svane Nielsen,
who goes by the name Blondie,
stabbed two members of Bullshit
right there on the spot,
and they both died from their wounds.
[woman] Makrellen, why do you
go around killing each other?
- Where's the fun in that?
- I wish I knew. It's not.
Blondie, the fat bastard, is locked up
in Vestre. That can't be fun.
[ominous music playing]
[Norton] After the killings,
there continues to be constant
and escalating clashes
between Bullshit and Hell's Angels.
This leads to a decision
within HA ranks
that the only solution
is to make a loud, decisive statement
and take out the president of Bullshit.
It's like if you're faced with a snake,
the only thing to do
is to take off its head.
It boils over on May 25th, 1984
when Jørn "Jønke" Nielsen
gets in the back of a Volkswagen van
procured specifically
for the purpose of the assassination.
He gets in and waits.
Later that morning,
Makrellen and his wife, Pia,
leave the property
and they get into their car.
They begin heading into Christiania,
where they sell weed every day.
As they're getting into the car,
Jørn "Jønke" Nielsen
jumps out of the van,
and proceeds to run out
in front of Makrellen and Pia's car
and unloads an entire magazine,
through the windshield,
killing Makrellen in front of Pia.
[quiet dramatic music playing]
Bullshit later gets a new president,
going by the name of Høvding.
Anker Walther Markus is his name,
and he stood out among both
the hippies and the bikers.
[Nielsen] He looked like a Viking,
with a long beard
and hair like Erik the Red.
Um, leather vest with fringes.
[Norton] Høvding is the most senior
member of Bullshit. He's a big guy.
And he dresses more
like a medieval knight of the road
than he does a typical biker.
[Tuxen] One time, we were smoking a joint
in the community kitchen.
We were having a great time,
until Høvding showed up.
He looked like a Viking.
He had a baseball bat,
he was going
He was staring people down, I froze.
I was like,
"Fuck, he's going to bash my head in."
He stood there looking at me,
then went [laughs]
"Pretty boy." And he left.
[exhales relief] Yikes.
He was really unpleasant.
[Larsen] The Bullshit bikers
are different from the rest
of the Christiania community,
not just in appearance,
but also in behavior.
They're menacing, belligerent, violent,
and that's at odds
with the peace-loving ideology
at the foundation of Christiania.
[Lykke] In 1985, we had a big meeting
with Bullshit, at the cinema.
Three or four of their members
had been killed.
So, Bullshit is under a lot of pressure.
Um The meeting lasted
three or four hours,
and we laid out a set of demands.
If they wanted to stay in Christiania,
it had to be on Christiania's terms.
They were not to have motorcycles
in Christiania
or Bullshit-related back-patches.
Um, no carrying weapons.
And if anyone from Bullshit were
to break Christiania's rules,
especially in regard to violence,
we the citizens, have the power
to kick them out of Christiania
without the group interfering, defending,
or in any way supporting the member.
We even created this written charter,
which Høvding,
the president of Bullshit, signed.
On December 22nd, 1985,
Bullshit is having a Christmas party
at their clubhouse on Amager.
At some point during the evening
a few members decide to leave,
and go continue the party elsewhere.
They go to Nemoland in Christiania.
Unbeknownst to them, 15 minutes prior,
three heavily armed men arrived,
and were waiting for Høvding
and his group to show up.
Good evening.
In Christiania, Copenhagen,
Bullshit's acting president,
38-year-old Anker Walther Markus,
was killed this morning by gunfire.
[Norton] The bloody drama
took place at Nemo Cafe
in the early hours of the morning.
About 20 people were present,
and witness to the event.
Høvding was found near the exit.
He had been shot
by eight nine-millimeter rounds.
RUM - BAR KITCHEN - BATHROOM
Høvding was gunned down in the shooting,
and an innocent Christianite,
who just happened to be there,
was hit as well.
The members of Bullshit tried to tell us
that if Høvding had been allowed to be
armed, it wouldn't have ended like that.
We caught flak for that.
Three members of the Black Sheep
biker group have been incarcerated.
All were charged with double homicide,
on Saturday, in Freetown Christiania.
The chaotic culture of Bullshit
comes to a head
when a guy going by the name
Portøren disappears.
Police get a tip that this Portøren
has actually been killed,
and the perpetrator is found
to be among Bullshit's own ranks.
The police have already known
for some time now
that a member of the group
has gone missing.
They get a tip to go out and look for him
at the Multimediehuset,
which at this time was Bullshit's primary
hangout in Christiania.
MULTIMEDIA HOUSE
The squad had been digging for weed
at Multimediehuset that summer.
PREBEN JØRGENSEN
RIOT SQUAD
And on the spot
where they had started the dig
new concrete had been poured.
So they start excavating.
As they gradually
broke the concrete apart,
they realized
that they had hit the right spot.
Someone was down there.
It was Portøren.
[intriguing music playing]
They received information
that someone was killed
and that the person had been
encased in concrete.
We arrived to take over,
as the next shift.
By then they had already dug him up,
and they'd already transported
the body away.
We stood out there guarding the site,
we were helping to secure the area.
I remember standing
by the concrete blocks,
and you could clearly see
the shape of this person,
and you could see
some fingernails still caught
in the concrete.
And then there was
the smell of death.
Once you have smelled it
you'll never forget.
It's a distinctive smell.
It still lingered there.
It's overwhelming because you know
that a person has been killed.
It was the first time I experienced that.
If that doesn't affect you
then I think you're wired wrong as a cop.
[Jørgensen] Of course, I'd like to know
who from Bullshit did it.
We could look at who was in jail
and who was out.
Who was at large,
and which of the guys at large
would be capable of that?
[whistles] Peter Panik.
[Norton] PP, or Peter Panik,
is know throughout Bullshit
as a pretty belligerent character.
Um, he also happened to be
the one member
who killed
the only Hells Angels related person
during the war
between Bullshit and Hells Angels.
[Jørgensen] Peter Panik
was mentally disturbed, to put it plainly.
He was so dangerous that even his fellow
gang members were afraid of him.
He was unpredictable.
Completely unpredictable.
It turns out that Portøren had been killed
in an accidental shooting
at the Bullshit clubhouse on Amager.
PP, or Peter Panik,
had been playing with a gun,
and at one point,
it unintentionally went off.
Portøren was shot and killed instantly.
In a state of collective, um, well it was
panic, I guess you could call it,
the group decided to dispose
of the body by casting it into the floor.
Finding Portøren's body
would be the beginning of the end
for Bullshit
and their presence in Christiania.
The shooting
and the subsequent discovery of the body
not only compelled the Christianites to
finally evict Bullshit once and for all,
but also outright ban the wearing
of biker vests in Christiania.
The biker club Bullshit has been
driven out of Christiania,
and they have virtually no influence
anymore in the Danish biker world.
[Norton] After the death of Høvding,
a member by the name of Krølle
becomes Bullshit's new president.
In 1988, he calls the Hells Angels
at their clubhouse on Titangade and says,
"We've shuttered the club
and burned our vests."
That marks the end of the first biker war.
It was over.
It was predictable that it would end
like that for Bullshit.
I mean they were
so far out of their league
when they started messing with the Hell's
Angels and their supporting clubs.
In the 1980s, we had
a lot of violence surrounding Bullshit.
However, that period opened up
the weed market
to other people and groups
who may not be bikers,
but who are hardcore criminals
with violent methods
of getting their points across.
There was an ugly vibe around the weed
market in the late eighties.
In 1988, I was serving out
my first prison sentence.
There, I met one
of Christiania's drug kingpins.
[quiet dramatic music playing]
He was impressed
by how I dealt with conflict,
and asked me to work for him
when I got out.
He got out about a year or so later.
Three months after that,
I was released too.
When I came out,
there's a BMW in the parking lot.
He said, "Today is the day."
I thought, "I might have hit
the motherload with this one." [chuckles]
I was brought in
as just a bodyguard at first.
The first time I went
to Christiania with him,
we went to a place called Nemoland.
Some young punks were playing pool,
and I signed up on the board,
to get in line to play next.
But they didn't leave,
so I asked what was up.
One of them says, "Go outside and wait.
Your turn will come."
I had a violent mindset back then.
So I head-butted one guy
and punched the other guy in the face.
Then, it was our turn.
That's how I dealt with Christiania.
After a relatively short while,
I was made a full member,
on equal ground
with other members of the organization.
They knew I was trustworthy.
There were three of us at the top.
We received approximately
one ton of hashish
every six, or seven weeks,
by truck, uh, from Holland.
[Norton] Throughout the late 1970s
and into the eighties,
the vast majority of the hashish
that came into Christiania
comes from Holland.
The process of importing cannabis
majorly evolved,
it shifted from small,
ad-hoc batches to larger shipments.
Deals, had previously been
unplanned and improvisational,
and now there was a fixed supply chain.
Some of the, um, kingpins,
they increasingly started to take on
a sort of wholesaler's role,
bringing hash into Christiania
where it was then sold to pushers,
who resold it, in turn, to buyers.
At that point, the police
had had no clear strategy
for how to fight the large scale cannabis
trade that was surging in Christiania.
The Riot Squad is deployed
and conducts its operations,
but they only are able
to confiscate a few grams.
They are struggling to try to contain the
massive weed trade that's always going on.
[riot officer] We're sitting
in Fredens Ark, on the gable,
and the camera is pointed down at,
uh, Pusher Street.
We also did some raids
on Pusher Street during the daytime.
We had to get in.
We sent in a few guys first.
We would observe them.
In his right hand, he's holding a bag
with half a kilo of hash in it.
Watch the woman in orange.
She's talking to him
because he's a customer.
He takes a big whiff.
There were some good vantage points
overlooking Christiania,
to find out where they hid stuff
and who went where.
The one in white bites off a piece.
Four grams is a few hundred.
They had guards looking out for us.
When they spotted us, they'd yell,
"The cops are here!"
She's getting another bar.
She's sold out, so "dad" resupplies her
with a bit more.
They've spotted the cop,
so they start to leave.
They're coming from all sides.
The dealer disappeared.
Our job was to observe
and arrest them with their weed,
so we got them.
A riot officer just came over
and stopped her.
She already handed it off.
We wanted to make them
as uncomfortable as possible.
[dramatic music playing]
[Norton] In the late eighties,
the authorities began to require liquor
licenses at the bars in Christiania,
the same way
as with any other establishments
serving alcohol in the city.
The authorities implemented this
because if Christiania's bars are required
to get liquor licenses,
the licensing police
can then enter any bar and inspect them.
Then If they find the sale
of or other crimes related to hash
in the bar in question,
the licensing law can simply be used
to shut the place down.
But the Christianites,
at first, were not interested
in requiring the issuance of licenses.
So, the police decide to put pressure
on the Christianites
with a major alcohol raid operation
to catch them off guard, so to speak.
[people shouting]
Today, the police conducted
raids at 13 illegal bars in Christiania,
which led to violent clashes
between young people and police.
The idea was if you remove the beer
then maybe we could bring them to heel.
[Lykke] 300 to 400 officers
showed up in the morning
and cleared out
maybe 14 establishments selling alcohol.
That was pretty shocking.
That caused a major riot.
[people shouting]
They were pissed at us for going in
and clearing out all the bars.
The whole situation just escalated
and eventually culminated
in a full-blown battle
out on Prinsessegade.
[people shouting]
For a couple weeks following
what took place on Prinsessegade,
all of the bars were closed.
Then we started issuing
individual licenses.
An ulterior motive
was for the licensees to make sure
that no weed was being sold
at their places of business,
because then
they could lose their licenses.
As a result, the weed trade
was pushed out of the cafes
and into the open.
When the weed sale was moved out,
everything changed in Christiania.
There was an enormous rise
in activity by the main entrance,
which caused a lot of problems.
[Lykke] We lost control of the entrance
located at Bådsmandsstræde
and, um, Prinsessegade
There were reports of violence,
and at night, people were being mugged,
and having their money taken.
So, we ended up closing that
entrance with railroad ties and concrete,
and then we set up a new entrance,
which was located on Prinsessegade.
CHRISTIANIA
At the same time, we cleared out
the cannabis trade on Prærien
and walked down
between the opera and the bakery
and drew up a yellow line.
Then we went to the other end
and drew up a yellow line
between the Venushuset building
and the hotel.
We decided that cannabis
could be sold there.
That was the precise moment
that Pusher Street was born.
It was the start of the period
where Christiania, in some way, tried
to set up rules for the cannabis trade,
to try to make it bearable
for the community.
- [quiet dramatic music playing]
- [dog barking]
[Norton] After Pusher Street
had been established,
it became increasingly difficult
for the police to work in the area.
And that's not something
the police are very happy about.
And so, to mount a more targeted effort,
they decided they were going
to set up a special Christiania patrol,
which would be dedicated
to work in Christiania.
ON THE NEXT EPISODE
Their job was to shut down Pusher Street,
and they were fierce.
You thugs!
[Andersen] Things got rough,
that's for sure.
And the batons came out
to assert our control.
You're all pigs in pig suits!
They would force you down onto
the ground and put a knee on your back.
Kick your shin and lay you down.
Before too long people
were throwing rocks.
[people shouting]
It's lights out if you catch one
of those in the head.
There was a whole line of police
officers with shields.
They liked to draw blood.
Christiania was shrouded in tear gas.
You couldn't go anywhere.
They knocked on my door,
so I went to check it out.
When I opened the door, there was
someone standing there with a hood on.
Then a baseball bat
was swung straight at my head.
[tense dramatic music playing]