An Icelandic Story

I am a stranger in a strange land.

It's generally my quote.....because of various circumstances....that I've come to be a Bama guy wandering around Germany, and the rest of Europe.  Things are a bit different.  Things happen around circumstances that an American cannot imagine.

This week in Iceland....a strange event occurred which draws an American's interest.

The cops got called in Reykjavik (the capital city).  It was a dire circumstance....some Iceland guy waving a rifle around at a window.  Fear gripped the residents of the neighborhood.  The cops arrived.  Some efforts were made to quietly end the situation.  That failed.  The cops ended up shooting the guy who held a hunting rifle.  He's dead.

The unusual circumstance to this?  He's the first guy in Icelandic history....shot by Icelandic cops.  They've faced off various folks before, but never resorted to using a pistol or rifle to take down a dangerous guy.

So far, the investigation is underway.  Cops won't say much.  There's a belief that drugs and alcohol were involved, but it'll be a month or two before the toxicology report bluntly says that to be a fact.

In a country of 325,000-odd folks, there are occasional murders and killings.  But some generally report that it's an average of maybe one per year.  They actually gone a year or two on some occasions with no dead bodies appearing.

From the Suddeutsche Zeitung, the reporter asked questions from an Icelandic resident who writes criminal books and murder stories.  It's a challenge....he admits.  You just can't write up a typical US murder book with several bodies appearing from a deranged killer.  Icelandic folks won't take it serious.  So you kinda limit yourself.  It kinda sounds like you can have one to two bodies max....otherwise, the typical Icelandic who-did-it-killer book is a failure.

The reporter never asked how many books a typical writer would sell off a fresh new story.  With only 325,000-odd residents....I'd think a thousand books might be average success, and five thousand would astronomical.

My general impression....from watching various Icelandic TV series and around six Icelandic movies....it's kinda like Mayberry (the Andy Griffith town).  Folks know each other.  There's no NCAA stuff to argue over.  One guy might get all huffy about such-and-such snow shovel, while some other guy is snow-blower freak.  Some gal might get into a big catfight one night with another gal.....over the only eligible single guy in the fishing village, who happens to be forty and a marginal success in the barber trade.

There's going to be talk for weeks and months over this police shooting.  Someone will likely write the guy's life story.  Someone will make a epic poem over his demise.  Some gal will claim she knew him as a tender guy.  Who knows.....they might even erect a statue to the guy.....the only one ever shot by the cops....and likely on some liquor binge episode.  Stranger things in life have occurred.