Faceless Culprit: How Swedish Media Prevented Police From Catching Thief

Swedish media have published screenshots of a video in which a man hit a woman with a child on the subway. The woman prevented the culprit from committing a theft and for that he attacked her.

Some Swedish media, such as the SVT channel hid the face of a criminal by pixelating it. This is despite the fact that the police appealed to the public to help find the attacker.

The question of how citizens should seek a ‘man without a face’ was a concern that was raised by the television journalists.

Stockholm police asked for help in finding the perpetrator who hit a woman, after she prevented the robbery on 5 January. Until now, the search has been unsuccessful, Swedish Fria Tider wrote.

The young woman with two small children noticed that the man attempted to rob an elderly woman and yelled at him. The man punched her in the face and spat on her, and then he quickly disappeared.

The tolerant Swedish television, however, did little to help the police as in the story of the crime the wanted man is beyond recognition due to the pixeled image of his face.

Ficktjuven attackerar småbarnsmamma https://t.co/EMYvTQd8gg Spottar henne i ansiktet. @svtstockholm @svtnyheter pic.twitter.com/VWbA013rLW

— SVT Stockholm (@svtstockholm) January 21, 2016

​The decision caused a wave of sarcasm and indignation on social networks.

“Good idea to hide the face, SVT. Otherwise someone will suddenly recognize him and he will be caught,” one Twitter user wrote sarcastically.

“Why did you hide the face, when the police have clearly asked for help in his capture?” another person wrote.

SVT journalists, however, expressed confidence in their actions. “The main principle of SVT: we never show people the suspects, who are not yet convicted. We are not a court and can never know the whole picture,” according to their comment on Facebook.