Norrmalmstorg robbery

The Norrmalmstorg robbery was a bank robbery and hostage crisis best known as the origin of the term Stockholm syndrome. It occurred at the Norrmalmstorg Square in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1973 and was the first criminal event in Sweden to be covered by live television. Jan-Erik Olsson was a convicted criminal who had disappeared while on furlough from prison and then held up a bank and took four hostages. During the negotiations that followed, Swedish Minister of Justice Lennart Geijer allowed Olsson's former cellmate and friend Clark Olofsson to be brought from prison to the bank. Although Olofsson was a long-time career criminal, it was deemed unlikely that he was in league with Olsson. Famously, the hostages then bonded with their captors and appeared to protect them. It must be noted, however, that the hostages were in fact simply distrustful of the police and their willingness to risk the hostages' lives. Police finally mounted a tear-gas attack five days into the crisis, and the robbers surrendered. Olsson was sentenced to 10 years for the robbery, and Olofsson was ultimately acquitted. The seemingly paradoxical actions of the hostages led to a great deal of academic and public interest in the case, including a 2003 Swedish television film titled Norrmalmstorg, a 2018 Canadian film titled Stockholm and a 2022 Swedish Netflix television series Clark.

Wikipedia