The police force at Gardermoen are unarmed

PolicePolice.Photo: Audun Braastad / NTB scanpix

The police at Oslo Airport must run out of the building to collect their weapons should there be a threatening situation. – Untenable, says the Minister of Justice.

 

The police working at Gardermoen, like the rest of the country’s police, do not carry weapons. Their weapons are locked in the cars parked outside the terminal building, reports NRK.

“Gardermoen is a special site, there are major distances, between areas and I believe, along with others, that today the police are not able to effectively combat a terrorist threat at the country’s main airport,” says Audun Martinsen, Chief Security Officer of the Eastern Police District, to NRK saturday night.

Should a threatening situation arise, they may have to run away to get their weapons. In some cases the distance is as far as 2.6 kilometers. According to police officers at Gardermoen, the situation has worsened after the expansion of the airport.

The Armed Forces decided in March, No, to a general armed police force, also at Gardermoen, but Justice Minister Per-Willy Amundsen (Frp) believes the situation is untenable.

“The majority in Parliament do not want us to have a clash with the police, so I can not, as a minister of justice, carry out something that the police act refuses me to do,” he said.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today