Terrorizing police: Revisiting ‘the policing of terrorism’ from the perspective of Danish police detectives
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370819874449 |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819874449
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370819874449
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Terrorizing police:
Revisiting ‘the policing
of terrorism’ from the
perspective of Danish
police detectives
David Sausdal
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
A common conclusion in criminology is that fears of terrorism are being (mis)used. The media
have used them to market their products, politicians to promote themselves as protectors, and
the police have profited through being granted increased powers and resources. Some scholars
even argue that one outcome has been a growing militarization of the police. This article revisits
this debate. It does so by taking an ethnographic look at how the war on terror has affected a
number of Danish police detectives’ daily work. In doing so, the paper shows how the idea that
police (mostly) benefit from the war on terror somewhat misses the mark – at least when seen
from the perspective of frontline officers. As the article demonstrates, rather than mobilizing
Danish detectives, terrorism most often makes them feel mired.
Keywords
Detective/police culture, ethnography, fear, frustration, militarization, policing
Introduction
‘Terror is ruining the Danish police!’ (Danish police detective)
In late February 2015, Denmark was hit by a terror attack dubbed the ‘2015 Copenhagen
Shootings’. The culprit, a young Danish citizen with Palestinian parents named Omar
El-Hussein, tried but failed to shoot one of the ‘Muhammad cartoonists’, the Swede Lars
Vilks. Later that day, while still on the loose, El-Hussein attempted to break into the
Corresponding author:
David Sausdal, Department of Anthropology, Centre for Global Criminology, University of Copenhagen,
Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Email: dbs@anthro.ku.dk
874449EUC0010.1177/1477370819874449European Journal of CriminologySausdal
research-article2019
Article
2021, Vol. 18(5) 755–773
Copenhagen Synagogue. He did not manage to do this either, but he did manage to kill
two civilians and wound five police officers during his rampage, only to be shot and
killed by the police later that day.
Following the Copenhagen Shootings and in the wake of previous terror attacks and
threats in other cities around the world, the threat level was heightened in Denmark and
the Danish police were ordered to increase their counterterrorism efforts. All this hap-
pened just two weeks before I started what would become 900 hours of ethnographic
observations of the Danish police. In early 2015, the Danish police had granted me access
to pursue a specific research agenda. I had been given permission to conduct an ethno-
graphic examination of the way in which the Danish police were dealing with an increas-
ing amount of transnational, cross-border crime, something that Denmark (not unlike
many other countries worldwide) had been experiencing since the beginning of the mil-
lennium. More specifically, I had been given the opportunity to observe the daily work of
two specialized detective units in the greater Copenhagen metropolitan area, Task Force
Burglary (TFB) and Task Force Pickpocketing (TFP), with both units investigating inter-
national suspects from countries such as Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Chile and Morocco.
My observations included insights into all aspects of the detectives’ working day. I was
present when they were working at their desks, when they were checking and updating
computer records, when they were examining CCTV footage, when they were running
wiretaps or using other surveillance technologies, when they were on stakeouts, when
they were interviewing suspects, when they attended meetings, when they were in court
and when they were discussing their work amongst themselves over a coffee.
Methodologically, my research thus followed the longstanding tradition of in situ
ethnographic observations of the police – a methodological tradition that Van Maanen
and Kolb (1982) amongst many others have argued to be particularly important because
the police are otherwise widely known for being selective and even misleading in their
external representations of their work. In situ ethnographic studies are important because
they help to clarify the behind-the-scenes reality of police work whereby the ethnogra-
pher ‘seeks to describe what it is that can be said to be happening from the point of view
of those for whom it is happening’ (Van Maanen and Kolb, 1982: 5). In regard to my
specific study, I was trying to shed ethnographic light on the viewpoints and workings of
Danish detectives engaged in policing cross-border criminal suspects.
In recently published works, I have described and discussed how Danish detectives
went about policing cross-border crime (Sausdal, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c). Here, however,
I wish to expand on some other, and somewhat peculiar, ethnographic observations that
I made during my time with the two detective units. These observations relate to the
aforementioned terror attack and, specifically, to how a subsequent Danish ‘war on ter-
ror’ affected the detectives’ working day. Put differently, this article is about the ways in
which the many demands placed on Danish detectives to prevent and police terrorism
were something they frequently found troubling. It is about the reasons why one detec-
tive even declared that ‘terror is ruining the Danish police!’ – reasons I was allowed to
witness first-hand during the many hours and days I spent with the two detective units.
In explaining how and why the detectives I was observing found this development trou-
bling, this article revisits both broader criminological and more policing-specific discus-
sions of terrorism. Here, prevailing arguments often run along the following lines. First,
756 European Journal of Criminology 18(5)
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