Gang War: Pusher Street (2025) s01e05 Episode Script

1
[tense music playing]
[music becomes intriguing]
I believe it was a little after midnight
when my phone rings.
ALLAN BEIER
FORMER POLICE OFFICER
[telephone ringing]
I answer, and it's the duty officer
at Station City.
And he gets straight to the point,
he tells me simply,
"Allan, two of your colleagues
were shot in Christiania."
[ominous music playing]
[echoing gunfire]
The call had gotten me out of bed,
and I remember I was just standing there,
frozen, holding my phone.
My brain can hardly keep up.
It's so much to process at once,
and it felt out of the blue.
It really made my head spin, you know,
going from being fast asleep
to receiving that kind of information.
I felt so much anger in that moment.
I was mad at Christiania and I was mad
that we hadn't been able to shut it down
because this wouldn't have happened.
I thought "If the politicians and
the police had gotten their shit together,
we could've steamrolled all of this,
and those two officers
wouldn't have been shot."
That's all that was running
through my head.
I ask him to repeat himself,
a few times.
Finally, he says,
"I know it's a lot to take in.
Two officers were shot in Christiania."
I just say, "I'll be right there."
[beeping]
[Larsen] What started
as a idealistic hippie dream,
ended in a brutal nightmare.
[The Wholesaler] If there's demand
for something and there's money to make,
people like me
will sweep in and capitalize.
[Larsen] On one side are the drug dealers,
and on the other side,
you have the combat-ready cops.
When we strike, we follow through.
[screaming]
[Larsen] 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.
[siren blaring]
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
[intriguing music playing]
[Norton] In March of 2014,
the police conducted a raid
that resulted in the arrests of well over
80 people in Operation Nordlys.
CARSTEN NORTON
AUTHOR & JORNALIS
They had accumulated
a huge amount of evidence
through the use of audio surveillance
and wiretaps.
They had detailed knowledge
about each stall.
They found account books and ledgers
that recorded sales and transactions.
From those documents,
they developed a sense
of which sellers handled
the largest volumes.
They were mapping what had happened
transactionally on Pusher Street
over the course of a two-year period.
The overall purpose of the operation
was that the police wanted to intervene,
especially against the Hells Angels
to prove that the biker group played
a controlling role in Pusher Street.
Of this large group
of more than 80 people arrested,
many of whom were believed to have
had connections to the Hells Angels,
ultimately only one biker was convicted.
Despite the scale of the arrests,
results proved extremely limited.
It would be fair to say
that Operation Nordlys
was a resounding failure for the police.
[Larsen] A consequence of the arrests
was that police had created
a power vacuum on Pusher Street.
It became easier for outsiders
to get into the cannabis market
because the old unity between
the drug dealers started falling apart.
[Carlo] They came in
and took all of our people.
Everyone that was involved
in the community.
They just removed all the people and
dealers who talked to the interlopers
CARLO
CHRISTIANITE
and, uh, made sure they stayed away.
The people who were arrested
were the dealers who had
an understanding of the proper way
to do business and forge a path.
There was no one left to run Christiania
because they had been jailed.
So now all of the old dealers
started to vanish.
KARL BILLE
ARTIST & MUSICIAN
The people with good vibes,
who saw the big picture,
the ones who made sure everyone was
behaving themselves, they're gone.
[contemplative music playing]
[Carlo] There was a huge shift.
New people started coming,
and then they very quickly started
rising up the food chain.
So, in response, the young
Christianites had to start selling
and do their best to take over.
The old-timers weren't around anymore,
to help keep an eye on things.
Young folks covered
for the ones causing trouble.
They weren't ready for the task,
it was obvious.
Anybody could see it.
So the newcomers ended up
becoming the violent element
of the new Pusher Street,
it was a quick change.
Things got sinister.
[tense music playing]
[Nikolaj] These brand new tensions
mounted overnight.
Before, you could talk freely with people.
NIKOLAJ
FORMER GOFER
But the atmosphere got rougher.
The good vibes and energy,
it completely vanished.
You used to know the sellers.
Suddenly, stalls were run by strangers.
These stalls had been such an important
part of the Christiania community.
MATILDE
CHRISTIANITE
The sellers and the people knew
each other and had a relationship.
There was a certain freedom felt
by the people who were selling cannabis,
and it just it went away entirely.
I mean, you didn't know
the people you were dealing with.
All of a sudden, it was a deeply,
deeply shady business.
[Mathilde] Everybody's wearing masks,
and you can clearly tell
who the dealers are.
The masks cover their noses,
and they wear sunglasses
and dark clothing.
People hang camouflage
netting above the stalls.
Everything becomes so closed off,
and you can't even see who's in there.
The dealers want to be completely
anonymous, and they're not very nice.
[Bille] It got worse, rougher,
and much more covered up.
One time an old friend hugged me,
and I could feel
they were wearing a bulletproof vest.
And I was like, "That is far out.
Are they afraid of being shot?
What's going on here? This is crazy.
Pusher Street used to be so
so friendly and nice."
Everything became so brutal.
It really got rough.
I actually stopped going
to Pusher Street. At all.
It lost it's identity,
it wasn't fun anymore.
If you needed weed, you tried
to find a dealer who was nice.
[Larsen] Something surprising happens
to the cannabis market in Christiania.
The stalls on Pusher Street
still belong to the Christianites,
but there's a shortage of people
to actually run the sales aspect.
Guards, cutters, and gofers
are all in short supply.
So for the first time
since it's inception,
the Christianites are forced
to compromise with their own rules
for running Pusher Street.
They start letting in outsiders.
So now, people who don't live
in Christiania
are being allowed to sell
cannabis on Pusher Street,
under the condition
that a Christianite owns the stand.
[tense music continues]
There was a marked change in the people
dealing cannabis on Pusher Street.
These guys were much less experienced
and were much younger.
I mean many of them were just teenagers.
These young guys got sucked in,
and were into playing very active,
high-risk roles.
You had to know a Christianite with a
certain amount of influence in Christiania
to open a stall for you.
But That rule didn't last long.
THE SOLDIER
Uhh Pretty soon others started
throwing their weight around.
Then they just started taking over.
I started working the streets
when I was 13, 14 years old,
and I've been there ever since.
A long time.
I would help the dealers stand guard
or sometimes even tend the stalls.
Mostly, I just walked around
and watched, you know,
just keeping tabs on what was going on.
If people were being difficult because
they didn't get what they wanted,
I'd involve some of the guys who I knew
were always willing
to kick someone's ass,
and we'd give them a beating.
Or if some customer was complaining,
we would make them shut up.
[Beier] The underlying concept of
Christiania as this utopia and sanctuary
where you could go
to enjoy a joint once in a while,
that couldn't exist anymore.
Not when the players
were so desperate to sell cannabis,
they were recruiting children
to help them.
I received reports that people as young
as 15 years old were working as couriers,
and were easily making as much
as 10,000 kroner a day.
It was no secret, there was an awful lot
of money to be made for a young person,
if they were willing to be involved
in bringing cannabis into Christiania.
When you see this kind of activity,
it's the ultimate proof of this
as a hardcore business being carried out
by a criminal organization.
It felt strange to talk
with childhood friends
who hung out with people that didn't
represent anything I stood for.
Those talks stopped feeling
like catching up
and more like walking on eggshells.
They seemed to have no qualms
about turning to violence.
It sucked to have to cut ties
with lifelong acquaintances,
but I just couldn't accept
the way they lived.
And it got to this point
where I couldn't reach them to ask,
"Why the hell are you doing this?"
They would just shut you out.
They didn't care.
They violated our constitution,
and when they did,
the constitution became
all the more irrelevant to outsiders.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mathilde] It made Christiania
feel unsafe.
We held community meetings
where people voiced their concerns.
The general feeling was that people
were scared and unnerved.
They would ruin the meetings.
They sat in the back,
smoking and making a commotion.
It was a complicated mix of emotions.
It was hard to get my head around
all the things that were going on.
There was a lot of pushback against
the dealers, more than ever before.
At the same time,
people understood the reasons
why things were turning out
the way they were,
and to some extent
they were even sympathetic.
Many people thought
it was the police's fault.
I found the whole situation
to be very uncomfortable,
and I started to avoid Pusher Street
as best I could.
[Lykke] The market does return.
And There are still police raids.
OLE LYKKE
CHRISTIANITE
Back! Stay back! Back!
[Lykke] There was a series
of violent incidents.
[people shouting]
It became a very turbulent place.
It all came to a head at the end
of August, 2016.
[gunfire]
In August of 2016,
the police went into Christiania
to track down a person whom they believed
played a role in Pusher Street.
At one point,
officers called out to the man.
POLICE
Instead of stopping and getting arrested
like the police had expected,
the person proceeded to pull out a gun
and open fire on the officers.
[gunfire]
In the wake of the shooting,
investigators proceeded
to launch a full scale manhunt
to try and locate the shooter
and apprehend him.
At that time I was living
in Fredens Ark,
which is the building
where the shooting took place.
I looked over at my boyfriend,
and we both agree those were gunshots.
We got up and went over
to look out the window,
But we couldn't really see
what was going on.
I had heard about an operation
going down in Christiania.
BJARNE CHRISTENSEN
FORMER OPERATIONS MANAGER
There had been a shooting. One officer,
injured and another, critically injured.
The atmosphere was somber.
Everyday you're walking around
in uncertainty.
Is he going to live or could he die?
If he survives,
what will his life be like?
No one knew what to do, but at some
point, you just have to move on.
[Beier] I ran out the door and drove
straight to Christiania with colleagues.
I was there, on the scene, a few hours
after the shooting had taken place.
[tense music playing]
[Christensen] A command center
was set up to find the man who did it,
and I was called in to lead the manhunt.
We put our full force
behind tracking down the perpetrator.
We knew there was something
we could do, that we weren't powerless.
So we were definitely on the offense.
I said, "We've got to get this guy."
It was crucially important,
so all available resources were assigned.
[music fades]
The police establish a command center,
which is referred to as a KSN.
They call in a rapid response unit,
also known as Romeo patrol,
which is then backed up
by regular street cops.
[dramatic music playing]
[Lykke] The manhunt is on.
Three, four, five hours pass,
until four in the morning,
with this strange divide in Christiania.
People in Woodstock and Nemoland act
as if nothing happened.
At Fredens Ark and Pusher Street,
it's teeming with police.
The officers had shut down
all of the entrances
except for the one at Grå Hal.
When I arrive, I was met with a much
different atmosphere in Christiania.
The hostility I experienced
so many times before is gone.
I'm trying to take everything in
and I notice that all of my colleagues
have a seriousness about them
that I've rarely seen.
We sent in our best people,
which is our AKS team,
kind of like a SWAT team.
So we've got what we call
"the Romeo patrol" at the level below.
These guys are regular officers
with patrol cars
who have closed down certain areas.
This makes it so he can't get out
and we'll spot him. We box him in.
[Lykke] It's crawling
with armed police officers,
and it's obvious
that they are not to be trifled with.
[officer] Show me your hands!
Some of our Romeo officers
start a sweep of the area
because the intelligence we received
suggested that the perpetrator
is still there at large in Christiania.
We had brought in specially trained police
officers carrying rifles with sights,
which enabled them
to combat significant threats.
When a unit like that goes in,
they proceed very tactically.
They systematically go though
and search every area in Christiania.
So once an area is searched and cleared,
they seal off all entry to it from others.
The goal is,
once they've cleared everything,
they can come back to us
and confidently say,
"He's not here
because we would've found him."
[tense music playing]
It's now very early in the morning,
the clean-up is complete,
and the work is done.
I go home. I change out
of my uniform and finally go to sleep.
When I wake up the next morning,
this situation is everywhere,
all over the media.
An officer is in critical condition
after being shot in the head
during an altercation in Christiania.
Yes, the situation is extremely serious.
We have a young officer
who is in critical condition.
It was hard to come to terms
with the fact
that police officers were being shot at.
It was super problematic.
The shooting brought all my concerns
about Christiania rushing back.
To me, Christiania was a bad place.
It was dangerous
and it was completely compromised.
Cannabis was being sold by
and to school age kids,
and that crossed a line
that I just couldn't accept.
It needed to be shut down.
[ethereal music playing]
The next morning, I wake up to take
my two-year-old son to kindergarten.
And we can't get out.
There are armed police officers
with machine guns all around the house.
The doorbell rings,
and the police come in to interview us.
In that moment
I'm just trying to stay calm,
you know, so I don't freak out my son.
So I am able
to drop him off at kindergarten,
but I can't return for several hours.
The next day, a report comes in
that police made contact with the shooter.
[reporter] The shooting resulted in an
intense manhunt with search warrants,
canine units,
and increased police presence.
They were conducting
a search when they saw him on foot.
He fired shots
from a small-caliber pistol,
and succeeded in hitting
one officer's bulletproof vest twice.
The AKS team acted with unhesitating
precision and efficiency.
The officers returned fire immediately
in a controlled response,
and the shooter was quickly subdued
and no longer a threat.
A doctor did try to save his life,
but he ultimately succumbed
to his injuries.
I messaged my colleagues
involved in the incident in Christiania,
to let them know
that the perpetrator had been shot
- The manhunt was over.
- [contemplative music playing]
The shootings with the police
and the ensuing manhunt
start to make more Christianites question
the sale of cannabis on Pusher Street.
After that, the Christianites finally
started cooperating with the police.
The people stepped up
and said, "This is unacceptable.
Something needs to change."
A lot of people are no longer
comfortable with Pusher Street.
It was a sentiment that built up over
many years, involving many incidents.
The shooting and manhunt
was the final straw.
It was too crazy
that violence like that could happen.
That night
there was a big community meeting.
People were crying,
and everyone was very distraught.
You don't move to Christiania
because you sign up for a waiting list
for an apartment
and now there happens to be room.
You do it because you have
certain values, dreams, and wishes.
It involves a specific worldview
and belief system.
With all the violence, it became clear
that that dream had been shattered.
I mean it's is not something
you want to tolerate or condone.
A large group of people gathered to pray
for the individuals that were hit,
and for the officer who was shot.
At that point, it was unknown
whether he was going to survive,
and understandably a lot of people
were very scared and emotional about that.
So enough is enough.
For a while, there was a very real chance
that one of my colleagues
was going to pass away.
Thankfully, he did survive,
and is doing well
under the circumstances today.
After that incident we all became
more acutely aware that
we might have to use our guns one day.
That really instilled an awareness in me
that things had become very dangerous.
[contemplative music playing]
[Lykke] We agreed
that it had gone too far.
When we brought it to a vote,
we met with very little opposition.
Because very few drug dealers
even wanted to be anywhere
near Pusher Street after that incident.
It was an easy vote to pass.
[Mathilde] We agreed it was time
to take down Pusher Street,
and I really believed
we might change something.
The day came and I put on
messy clothes and pitched in,
removing screws and such.
There were a lot of young people
coming together for the cause.
Those of us who grew up here
have a special relationship to it.
We know its rhythms
and its contradictions.
We don't share the same romantic ideals
about Pusher Street as some do.
To us, it isn't just a place
of cannabis and hippie dreams.
To us, it's messy, compromised,
and in need of hard choices.
[Carlo] We have to act.
We have to make a move
and tear it down. We had enough.
We realized, it's time to go down there
and say, "Fuck you, Pusher street!"
We tore it all down, and we dropped off
a stall at the parliament building.
Our message to them was that,
"We've demolished Pusher Street
because of this tragedy
and we've lost control.
If legislation doesn't change,
there's no doubt
that it will come back just like before."
Today, the Christianites
have made a strong demonstration.
There's a lot of political
will on display.
They want to clean up Pusher Street
and get rid the violence
but we also need
to prevent it from returning.
If the Christianites
are leading the conversation,
and the police are doing their jobs,
I think we can make it happen.
[contemplative music continues]
So now, more Christianites
are in agreement with politicians
on the matter of ending cannabis dealing.
Over nearly 40 years, Christiania
facilitated open cannabis trade,
which has been so lucrative that criminal
organizations are ready to kill
to keep their influx of millions.
There's too much money involved
for the dealers to go quietly.
Some of the leading Christianites
believe the solution to the problems
brought on by cannabis is obvious.
There's only one solution.
Everything else is--
Because they won't legalize it,
Christiania has no responsibility?
Yes, we have a responsibility to stay away
from violence and gunfire
and the incidents
that are happening far too often.
We spend a lot of time
at community meetings
mindfully discussing
how best to handle this.
It would be foolish to think
we can end it all at once.
It's a complex fight,
and it's not something
that can be properly resolved
in a week or two.
[Beier] There has been tremendous
inefficiency from our politicians.
I just shook my head
when the Christianites said
that they were closing down Pusher Street,
and the politicians went, "Great."
I knew it wasn't going to happen,
and I became incredibly frustrated
that our elected officials took their word
and would settle for that.
It was naive.
[Larsen] It went as predicted.
Customers are still out there, and
the dealers come back to Pusher Street,
but Pusher Street has changed.
And not for the better.
[Mathilde] There was
an extremely paranoid atmosphere.
It was incredibly uncomfortable.
I worked at a laundromat,
and there would be people hiding things
inside the washing machines.
People had drugs stashed near their
houses, in gardens, or on cargo bikes.
All these different forms of concealment.
That became a growing problem.
In my building, these strange people
were running up and down the stairs
with all kinds
of miscellaneous stuff, or money.
I couldn't tell who they were.
They didn't say hi,
they spat on the stairs.
They just ran up and down,
masked and anonymous,
and it made the whole place
feel tense and dangerous.
[dramatic music playing]
They tried a masking ban, which
was enacted in community meetings
and it made sense on paper, but
practically speaking we had
very few options to enforce sanctions.
The rule just existed on paper.
If people didn't follow it,
that was the end of the matter.
There was no effective follow-through.
At best you could call someone out as you
walked past or mention it in the street,
but where everyone wore masks
it was almost impossible
to do anything beyond that.
We liked the open cannabis market
where you knew what was going on.
It kept out hard drugs and made sure
the rules were properly followed.
NO THANK YOU! TO POLICE
SURVEILLANCE IN KRISTIANIA
When the police started
putting in surveillance
and installed cameras
the size of a pinhead,
the dealers took countermeasures.
[people cheering]
The police haven't given up,
and they still use any means necessary.
The arrests are getting very intense,
and the general sense
is one of not feeling safe.
It is just extremely unpleasant.
[people shouting]
That feeling is becoming more
and more prevalent on Pusher Street.
[dramatic action music playing]
[Lykke] There were a lot of raids
on the new stalls that had been rebuilt.
And it really came to a head around 2018.
[people shouting]
I'm hit!
[Lykke] The street took
a four-day break in an effort
to remove the worst offenders.
The police's response to the matter
was to start conducting daily raids.
They also did weekly raids, where they
would come and remove all the stalls.
So now the stalls are makeshift.
The street was out of control.
So at this point,
the support that we had
and the attempts made
to regulate the street started crumbling.
It crumbled more and more
and more and more.
[siren blaring]
[Larsen] After the shooting, the old rules
that have been maintained for years
are thrown out with the bathwater.
Criminal factions start to gain more
and more power in Pusher Street,
and the street gangs begin to move in.
[Lykke] All of a sudden, over 50% of
the dealers in the stalls are immigrants.
It's clear there are almost
no Christianites left.
Those who are have no particular say
in what goes on.
[Norton] So now if we take a closer look
at the underworld in Copenhagen,
it's become apparent
that more new factions had emerged.
While the bikers reigned
with an iron fist for many years,
they now silently bore witness
to a fleet of new players
taking the stage who usurped power
in a way that could not be prevented.
I think it would be fair to say that
the Hells Angels were caught off guard
in regard to the new generations
who were forming new groups.
[intriguing music playing]
If you look at the street gangs
and Pusher Street,
the Hells Angels were now
weakened in their presence.
The slate was washed clean,
and it was crawling with new factions.
They wanted a piece of the action.
They wanted a presence on Pusher Street
and a stake in the market.
[Beier] In the following years,
the cannabis market in Christiania
was challenged by Satudarah,
now known as the Comanches.
Satudarah took on the Hells Angels
and Bandidos in that market,
to get a piece of the action.
Their arrival upset the existing balance
and brought new competition,
which increased tensions
and made everything more volatile.
They swooped in and took over
the Hells Angels' position and power.
The old bikers had to accept
that there were bigger fish in the sea.
Eventually, we see LTF wanting to enter
the cannabis market in Christiania.
Now all of a sudden we have four factions
fighting over the marketplace.
[The Soldier] They only worked
The Street with us for a few months
before it all broke down.
That's when it went horribly awry,
and it just became completely unstable.
[contemplative music playing]
The new, more motley market
in Christiania
is much tougher
and much more unpredictable.
Immigrant groups went about things
in a much harsher way
than a biker club would.
Basically, the bikers were afraid of them.
Immigrants had more power
and wiggle room in the street.
If you had done something wrong,
they just humiliated you.
And that created a fear in the bikers,
even though they also
did that kind of stuff.
The difference was that the newcomer
groups were willing to make scenes
and escalate things quickly,
and that made the atmosphere
in the streets a lot more dangerous.
They were just way more hardcore.
The drug dealers, who were sent to prison
during Operation Nordlys,
are getting out, and they come back
to a Pusher Street
that is hard to recognize.
I got out and returned to a chaotic
environment. People were under pressure.
TONNY KLUCK
FORMER DRUG DEALER
Everything was pared back and torn down.
There were all these new stalls
and they had like military netting
and people were in masks.
I realized that
I didn't really know anybody,
and the atmosphere
had completely changed.
There's maybe 100, 150 new people.
[Mathilde] Christiania was able to coexist
with the criminal cannabis market
for so long
because there was this mutual trust
where we all accepted one another.
When the dealers and the cannabis
market, you know isolate themselves,
feel paranoid, hide away,
and become anonymous,
that foundation of trust crumbles.
You can't build a relationship with
those people, or under those conditions.
[intriguing music playing]
[Lykke] The beginning
of the end of Pusher Street
came with Operation Nordlys.
It gained traction
with the police shooting,
and then came the situation in 2018,
where the immigrants started moving in.
Pusher Street was
in a terrible state of decay.
15-year-olds on vacation from Greenland
were selling cannabis just for fun.
In the end, the street
was totally out of control.
It had devolved
into something unrecognizable.
When I retired as a field officer in 2019,
I saw an even more complex Christiania.
One with more cannabis, more violence,
and more conflict than ever before.
Those tendencies were already visible
when we started there in the early 2000s,
and by the time I left,
they had only deepened.
So there really seemed to be
no easy answer.
Only the prospect
of fighting it politically
or trying long,
slow measures like resocialization.
Even those options felt limited. There was
no clear, realistic solution on the table.
In the end, it unfolded into what we
in the 2000s had feared most:
multiple biker gangs
fighting over the same market
and prepared to shoot and kill for it.
I was I was not optimistic
about Christiania's future.
I saw no political will
to take the decisive steps needed,
and many of the Christianites
themselves showed little interest
in changing the situation.
And um At the same time,
the police were caught in a bind
without solid political backing.
The force and its leadership were under
pressure throughout those years,
trying their best to respond
with limited tools and little support.
[dramatic action music playing]
[woman] Good Evening,
What I'm about to say tonight
will have profound consequences
for all Danes.
[quiet dramatic music playing]
On March 11th, 2020,
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen
shut down the country
to implement coronavirus restrictions.
This also had an impact
on Pusher Street, in Christiania.
We closed off Christiania to everybody
except those who were actually from there.
Fences and gates were put up
on Pusher Street,
so you only ever met other Christianites.
A lot of people got a chance to experience
reconnecting with their neighbors.
Christiania is one of Denmark's
most visited tourist destinations.
In spring, when you look down the street,
it's completely full of people.
Closing things off presented a challenge
for the community.
We had to figure out how to come together
and begin having new relationships
with our neighbors.
It felt like how I remembered it,
from when I was living
in Christiania as a child.
[mysterious music playing]
I was going for evening strolls
down the street
and revisited an area
I hadn't been to in many years
because prior, I felt unsafe there.
I sat down in the middle
of Pusher Street and just gazed at it.
The bright lights that lit up the street
in the evening light
It was
It was magical.
It was mind-blowing to reclaim that place.
I had two kids at that point,
and I could let them go outside
without feeling fearful of what could
happen when they go outside.
It was incredibly liberating,
and it was a huge eye-opener for me
about how much Pusher Street
affected my personal life
and what it could be like
to live in Christiania,
if we were to um,
go about things differently.
That's why I live there.
In one way, it's a joy,
and in another way, it's a sadness,
you know, because I realized
how negatively this place that I love
has affected my life.
[bird cawing]
When we had to close down
for coronavirus,
our customers couldn't find
cannabis in Copenhagen,
so they came to Christiania.
[Lykke] That resulted in more
than a little bit of
"opportunistic trading,"
as the police called it.
It was happening on the ramparts,
and on street corners,
squares, in the subway
Deals happened quickly and openly,
often by people
who looked rough and unpredictable.
It was so visible and brazen,
but officers were reluctant to step in.
[ethereal music playing]
[Mathilde] We heard talk
of it happening in Christianshavn.
They were experiencing an unprecedented
level of dealing at the time as well,
but they weren't tolerating it.
That was a great inspiration
to me, actually.
Any time there had been fights
or conflicts,
I never called the police, although
in many instances I probably should have.
It didn't even cross my mind
that I could do that.
Suddenly, I'm seeing people
posting in Facebook groups
about how they film drug dealers
and how to call the police.
They've had enough of these people
standing there for two days straight.
It was eye-opening to see
how other communities were reacting
to what I had been living under.
People had a hard time understanding
why it's hard to live by Pusher Street
because many people don't know
what the street is now.
They still have this romanticized idea
about what the street was like
from back in the '90s
and the 2000s, when it was good.
I had felt alone, but now I can see myself
in other people
living in Christianshavn with kids
and see how they are living there.
The neighborhood council asked us
to move Pusher Street indoors,
so they wouldn't have
to look at it or deal with it.
Some people thought it was better
when it was indoors to begin with.
And some Christianites thought we should
go ahead and give the green light
to go back indoors
as a means of relieving the pressure.
We were a ragtag bunch of misfits
that opened a stall near Grå Hal,
to help out our regular customers.
We felt bad for them.
[Lykke] Then the dealers started selling
in smaller quantities.
So this gave people the choice
of getting mixed up with the thugs outside
or getting the old treatment
from decent Christianites.
As it turned out,
the police weren't on board with that.
I went back to prison.
This time I served ten months.
[Norton] For the first time,
you saw an expansion
and migration of Christiania's product.
When Pusher Street shut down,
the cannabis trade moved to the city.
If you were looking to buy cannabis,
instead of leaving your home
and going in person to Christiania,
you could just stay home
and have it delivered via courier.
After COVID, Pusher Street
was resurrected in a new incarnation.
There were new factions
fighting for a presence in the street.
The gangs were making their move.
The atmosphere felt tenser
and more fraught than before,
with people on edge and a general sense
that things could turn ugly at any moment.
There were more violent clashes
and incidents that had once been shocking
now felt alarmingly routine.
Overall the environment
was becoming even more brutal.
ON THE NEXT EPISODE
[gunfire]
I hear the gunshots,
and then it goes quiet.
I'm debating myself on,
"Are those fireworks or what?"
Then people start screaming.
He was shot several times.
He starts shaking. The paramedic is trying
to resuscitate him. But he's gone.
He goes,
"Hey, that's unacceptable. Get out."
All of a sudden [mimics gunfire] Yeah?
For me, it couldn't get worse.
I was on the edge.
It was like being in
an American a gangster movie.
My brother texted,
"I think our buddy's brother passed away."
He couldn't get a hold of his friend,
so I called my friend,
who confirmed that his little brother
was shot and killed.
IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO
PRESENT BANDIDOS MC AND LOYAL
TO FAMILIA WITH THE ALLEGATIONS
IN THE EPISODE.
COMANCHES MC AND HELLS ANGELS
MC WERE PRESENTED
WITH THE ALLEGATIONS,
BUT DID NOT COMMEN
BEFORE THE PROGRAM AIRED.
[tense dramatic music playing]