Swedish police on Tuesday were investigating a riot that broke out overnight in a predominantly immigrant suburb in Stockholm after officers arrested a suspect on drug charges.
The clashes started late Monday when a police car arrested a suspect and people started throwing stones at them in Rinkeby, north of Stockholm. Unidentified people, including some wearing masks, also set cars on fire and looted shops.
One officer was slightly injured when a rock hit his arm and one person was arrested for throwing rocks, police spokesman Lars Bystrom said Tuesday. Some civilians who tried to stop the looters were also assaulted, he added.
Another officer fired his gun, not as a warning shot but because he was "in a situation that demanded he used his firearm," Bystrom said, adding "no one was hit."
He declined to give further details, saying the episode would be investigated.
Police were investigating three cases of violent rioting, assaulting a police officer, two assaults, vandalism and aggravated thefts, he said.
"This kind of situation doesn't happen that often but it is always regrettable when it happens," Bystrom said.
The incident drew scrutiny worldwide Tuesday because of President Donald Trump's assertions based on a Fox News segment that Sweden had experienced a surge in crime and violence as a result of taking in large numbers of refugees.
Swedish officials have criticized his statements as exaggerations. Preliminary statistics do not show a major increase in crime from 2015, when the country processed a record 163,000 asylum applications, to 2016. Riots like the one in Rinkeby, officials said, are not unprecedented but are infrequent.
Rinkeby, an area of around 16,000 people, is overwhelmingly populated by residents with immigrant backgrounds in particular, Somali and Arab among them and has been the site of previous clashes between residents and the police.
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