01x01 - Episode 1

[bunniefuu]

[quiet dramatic music playing]

[Elsa] When it happened,

I can only remember

all of the screaming.

ELSA

TOURIS

All the screaming

and the g*nsh*t, you know?

Everything was so beautiful

and good.

When I came out of the Stjerneskibet,

and I saw a little girl.

You know, it was just family people.

You know, people.

But then two men came walking

on my left side.

[g*nf*re]

And I

Yes, I I just didn't believe it,

but it was g*n sh**ting.

Then I fall on the ground.

I was scared

and I thought I was dying.

You know, I thought they were

sh**ting after all the people

who were running.

It was like forever,

but it was only a few seconds.

So I thought then,

"Oh, my god. My son.

He is now going to be motherless."

I got shot.

[sniffles] You know

Yes, it's like that now.

[tense dramatic music playing]

[Larsen] What started

as an idealistic hippie dream

ended in a brutal nightmare.

[man] If there's demand for something

and there's money to make,

people like me

will swoop in and capitalize.

[Larsen] On one side are the drug dealers.

On the other side,

you have the combat-ready cops.

When we strike, we follow through.

[people shouting]

And in the middle are the Christianites.

SHAME

I felt like a hostage,

caught between drug dealers and cops.

[man] What the hell are you doing?

They wanted to hurt each other.

It was It was w*r.

We thought, "f*ck them."

I've been in situations, thinking,

"You're dead. You won't survive."

We got to the point

that we had always feared.

[g*n blast]

Someone was shot dead

on Pusher Street.

That k*lling was the last straw, in the

decades of fighting over Pusher Street.

g*ng w*r

PUSHER STREE

[quiet dramatic music playing]

[people chattering]

One evening in August 2023

CARSTEN NORTON

AUTHOR & JOURNALIS

a group of men

made plans for an assassination

to take place in Christiania.

All of these men had connections

to a street g*ng

that was known as Loyal to Familia.

Two of the men went on to play

crucial roles in the assassination.

When they arrived

in Christiania that evening

they were both riding

MATE bikes, electric bikes.

It was an important,

uh, advantage for them

how fast those MATE bikes go,

like lightning.

And they don't have license plates,

so they were not easily identified.

The two men took a side street

into Christiania,

on Bådsmandsstræde.

Just inside the entrance of the town

is a fairly large building

called Fredens Ark.

Somewhere along the outside

of the building,

they parked the two MATE bikes

and continue into town.

From Fredens Ark, they proceed

on foot to Pusher Street.

Then they headed over

to the Best and Cheapest stall

which is located by a building

called Stjerneskibet.

BEST & CHEAPES

There's a 30-year-old male.

He is a probationary member

of the Hells Angels,

what they call a "prospect."

And he is the target

of this assassination plot.

[g*n c*ck]

The two men pull out their g*ns

and start sh**ting

at the Hell's Angels prospect

as he's tending the stall.

He runs into the building,

the two Loyal to Familia members

follow him inside,

and proceed to fire shots in the cafe.

- [screaming]

- [g*nf*re]

The prospect was hit several

times with fatal shots.

As well as four bystanders,

people who just happened

to be there,

including an Icelandic tourist,

who was shot in the hand.

[siren blaring]

People were completely overwhelmed.

CARLO

CHRISTIANITE

It hit so close to home.

[Mathilde] A lot of the other times,

it happened in the evening or at night.

I got word quickly

that my neighbor, Ali, was hit.

MATHILDE

CHRISTIANITE

And that really worried me.

He was probably

the only Christianite on the street.

He was down there

and got shot several times.

He was actually

in life-threatening danger.

It was deeply shocking.

He was just in the wrong place

at the wrong time.

[Mathilde] The way it happened,

It's scary that they made it

all the way to the middle of Pusher Street

and just opened fire.

It's absolutely crazy.

They were so ruthless

that they were willing

to sh**t innocent people.

It's a testament

to how absolutely,

completely cold-blooded it was.

We were so far gone

it couldn't get any worse.

The people of Christiania refused

to sit by while this happened.

[ominous music playing]

[Carlo] With all the violence

and intense stuff going on, the desire

for peace and control was the focus.

So we got to work to

to get it all shut down.

The dealers didn't have a say.

They couldn't defend it.

There was no way

for these groups to claim

that all they wanted to do

was sell marijuana.

They knew they couldn't go on.

[ethereal music playing]

[people cheering]

PUSHER STREET IS GONE

Freetown Christiania

has been transformed.

Hundreds of people

have gathered today in Copenhagen

to begin clearing

Christiania's longstanding

and infamous cannabis market,

Pusher Street.

We can walk freely now

and feel like it's ours again.

HULDA MADER

CHRISTIANITE

[Hummelgaard] Yeah,

this is the beginning of the end

of of organized g*ng crime,

the drug dealings

and the sociopathic bloodshed

PETER HUMMELGAARD - MINISTER OF

JUSTICE, SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY

the violence,

and the all of the horrific killings.

- [quiet dramatic music playing]

- [sniffs]

For over 50 years, police have fought

to stop weed trade in Christiania.

IF YOU LOVE CHRISTIANIA,

BUY SOMEWHERE ELSE

But it ended up being the Christianites

themselves to shut down Pusher Street.

Pusher Street had become one

of the most dangerous areas in Denmark.

An area overrun and completely

taken over, by violent criminals.

POLICE

[expl*si*n]

But the problems started long

before the existence of Pusher Street.

[dramatic music playing]

OLE LYKKE

CHRISTIANITE

Christiania was Copenhagen's

social dumping ground,

and it was treated as such

by police and other authorities.

In the late seventies, the Freetown

starts attracting people

who see the advantage

in being able to do things

like, for example, um conduct drug deals,

hide from the police, and such.

That problem is then thrust

onto regular Christianites

because it becomes an almost

lawless neighborhood

where dope shooters

and dealers just roam free.

And then, at the same time,

the people of Christiania

have a sneaking suspicion

that the city

is using Christiania as a junkyard,

of sorts, to offload unwanted

characters in society, at large.

It's never been proven,

but there is a long standing myth

in Christiania

that the police went

around telling all the drug dealers,

the junkies and other criminals in town,

that if they don't go to Christiania,

they will be arrested instead.

It is an indisputable

and statistical fact,

that the ratio of both drug users

and drug dealers

in the community of Christiania,

far exceeds the average

in the surrounding areas.

UNITED FRON

AGAINST JUNK!

[man] The drug trade that was going on

around the house has been stopped.

The people living in Christiania

who dealt drugs are being evicted.

[Norton] Internally, in Christiania,

they still want weed to be available.

FREDENS

ARK

"Free weed" has been

a well known mantra

from the time

the Freetown was first founded.

But by the end of 1979

FOR CHRISTIANIA

AGAINST JUNK

the people of Christiania

decided to organize

a movement against hard drugs.

[Lykke] The drug blockade

was a collaboration

between the activist community

and an association

called Support Free Weed.

They were able to work together

on getting rid of hard drugs.

We targeted people

who were doing hard drugs.

KURT NIELSEN

FORMER DRUG DEALER

Um I wore the slogan

"Say no to hard drugs"

on my, uh, Scott jacket. You could tear

off the patch. [mimics tearing sound]

So we had some made that said,

"Say no to hard drugs."

So, uh Yeah.

Back in the day.

I started going when I was about 13.

[clears throat]

It was full of hippies

and people smoking weed,

and it, uh, it wasn't so serious.

I could I could be myself.

It was kind of like Ungdomshuset.

There was a bunch

of people who were politically

passionate, and they put

their heart and soul in it.

Um in Christiania,

there were school teachers,

educated people, and artists, all kinds.

Um and they also liked

to smoke joints, you know.

And there was also, um

There was also

Well, the rest of us.

[Lykke] The weed trade was going on

in and around Woodstock

and the community kitchen.

Those were the two main centers.

There was a lot of trade happening

in the area known as Prærien,

which is the area from Pusher Street

to the main entrance

over on the corner of, uh,

Bådsmandsstræde and Prinsessegade.

The people dealing at Prærien

tended to be outcasts.

And recognized members

of the community

dealt at the kitchen or Woodstock.

[Nielsen] I made a thousand kroner

the very first day I sold a hundred grams.

I did that 20 days in a row,

and then I had 20,000.

It became my profession,

just like any other job.

WHOLESALER

I'm from Falster,

where drugs were taboo,

and the police targeted them.

I was surprised

by the openness in Christiania.

It was easy,

I brought a few processed buds,

traded three grams of weed

for one gram of hashish,

and took it to Falster, to sell.

[intriguing music playing]

[Larsen] As a countermeasure to the

growing cannabis trade in Christiania,

the police deployed a special force unit

that is regarded as hard-hitting

and extremely controversial.

A unit by the name Riot Squad.

RIOT SQUAD

[Jørgensen] 99% of the people

we dealt with

already had some kind

of a criminal record.

Violent offenders,

um K*llers, drug dealers,

and thieves all mixed together.

The Riot Squad

was a specialized police unit

that was created in the sixties.

This unit was specifically

meant to target anyone

involved in situations

connected to organized crime.

They would deploy the Riot Squad

in places where it was difficult

for the regular police to patrol.

The Riot Squad officers

would operate in plain clothes,

and often these specialized

units did a lot of solo work,

they worked very independently.

This attracted a certain kind of officer,

that's more headstrong

and willing to resort to methods

that probably, um,

wouldn't have been allowed

if they had been in uniform.

So, A lot of riot officers

got a reputation

for being rough and heavy-handed.

Right, you wanted me

to take these off.

Or they won't recognize me.

After I completed basic training,

MOGENS LAURIDSEN

RIOT SQUAD

I applied for the Riot Squad,

the first of February, uh, 1981.

When I started out, myself,

and about four other police officers

were pulled into a room.

Our bosses told us that they had

an assignment in Christiania,

and they needed volunteers.

It was an assignment

where we had to work undercover.

The next day, we got an apartment

on Prinsessegade to work out of.

We received intel on a few suspects

that were reportedly behind

the organized cannabis trade,

and our primary goal was

to infiltrate their operation.

To find out what was going on.

We would go out on daily walks

or "patrols" to see

who was out dealing.

We would report our findings

back to the squad,

then four of our guys

would be stationed in a car outside,

waiting for word from us that it was time

to come in and bust the deal.

It was a double whammy.

Working undercover

is about creating a profile,

so that you can go about your business

without being identified

as a police officer.

I got a leather jacket and borrowed

my little brother's motorcycle.

The challenge was

that we had police radios,

so we would be able

to communicate with our superiors,

if we ever found ourselves in trouble.

In some ways

that was good for safety,

but it's tricky because the radio is big,

which can make it very difficult

to, um, hide it under your clothes.

I was like,

"Damn, this could go horribly wrong."

We also had our sidearm. Just in case.

[Norton] The undercover mission unfolds

in an unforeseen way.

The operation is the first of its kind,

where you actually see how organized

the import of cannabis,

to Christiania, really is.

The main thing was to figure out

who the major players were

behind the organized cannabis trade.

We were able to install wiretaps

on a few different phone booths

around the neighborhood.

At one point we observed a Finnish girl

who went in and called the Netherlands.

She ordered 75 paintings

at 33,000 kroner a piece.

I'm not much of an art buff,

but it struck me as odd

that all the paintings happened

to be exactly the same price.

Then we started taking an interest

in that girl exclusively.

[intriguing music playing]

After 14 days, she left to pick up

another shipment with her boyfriend.

And we tried to put a tail on them.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea

to send the undercover cops

to do the tailing,

but that's what we did.

So we continued to tail

that Finnish girl and her boyfriend,

but when we got down to Ringsted,

they went through a roundabout.

It was suspicious to us that

they headed into such heavy traffic,

so we figured they spotted us.

Then they started driving back

to Copenhagen.

They were closing in on Christiania.

We said, "This, this this is no good."

We managed to pull them over

right before they got

to Christiania's main entrance.

We arrested them, and they had a bag

with 1.7 million Danish krone in the car.

At the same time, we send some

people to intercept the courier,

who's supposed to be coming

from Holland.

The gas tank in the car had a compartment

for 75 kilos of hash,

with the rest for gas.

GAS TANK - GAS - 75 KG HASH

That's not much, so they had to refuel

several times from Holland,

but it was a clever stash spot.

[Norton] That was the first time

you had proof

of the sophisticated import logistics,

which were more advanced than expected.

The police officers noted

how smoothly and professionally

the Dutch outfit operated.

They had been used

to more simple approaches,

like suitcases with hidden compartments

where the drugs would be stashed.

But now, um, you're seeing things

like customized cars,

and couriers who were better

at blending in,

and, um the drugs

were changing hands several times

along the way, from person to person.

It was much more advanced

and organized than expected.

Christiania, as the police saw it,

was always a hotbed for criminal activity.

Then, in the 1980s, a new phenomenon

emerges in Denmark.

Namely bikers.

[rock music playing]

The local punks have grown up.

They ride motorcycles and wear vests.

"Bullshit," they called themselves.

They took over Christiania.

Bullshit needs money.

Christiania is a great place

to make money.

They try to get into the kitchen,

and Woodstock.

They never really get in,

so instead they go sell

their weed at Prærien.

[Balther] When you went to Christiania

in the eighties and you walked in

JØRN BALTHER - DOCUMENTARY

FILMMAKER & CHRISTIANITE

you'd see all these leather um, vests

with "Bullshit" on the back.

They'd get in your face

and would start shoving you around,

going, "You want some weed?"

We would try to hurry past them

at the entrance.

KLAUS TUXEN

ACTIVIST & FOUND OF HEMP PARTY

They always sold terrible weed.

They were just, unpleasant, you know?

They'd say, "Buy weed from us."

We were like, "We don't want it."

"Sure, you want some weed."

"No, I don't. Get outta here."

"Watch your mouth, before I smack you!"

They were really nasty gritty guys,

I never bought from those idiots.

[tense music playing]

[Lykke] They couldn't get a place to stay.

They tried to take over some apartments

in Fredens Ark. It didn't work.

They got a few apartments

and also a workshop in Multimediehuset.

They also wanted

to have a clubhouse there,

but had to settle for one in Sundby.

[tense music playing]

They were always a problem because

their behavior was unacceptable.

They were violent, they started fights,

and there were always

all kinds of things like that.

[Andersen] There was

FLEMMING SLOTH ANDERSEN

RIOT SQUAD

There was Høvding, and there

was Pagaj Kaj, and there was Makrellen,

um, who all hung out there.

They were violent. We knew that.

It was immediately apparent that violence

came easy to them, second nature.

[Makrellen] We're currently

divided into two camps.

- [woman] Hm.

- There's Bullshit and the others.

[woman] You're a part of Bullshit.

Who are the others?

Yeah, they they're a club that calls

themselves the Hells Angels.

[woman] Okay.

[Makrellen] They're the enemy, basically.

Well, ya know, it says it on their backs.

They think they own Denmark.

Both biker clubs

are extremely territorial,

so they both want turf,

and to claim bars and clubs

and other places as their own,

so they can do their thing there

without running into the others.

And so they made agreements

on what parts of town belonged to whom.

There was no question about it:

Østerbro was Hells Angels' turf.

One night in September 1983,

several members

of the biker g*ng, Bullshit,

all decided to go to a bar

called Søpromenaden.

From the Hell's Angels' point of view,

it is unacceptable

that members from Bullshit are at a bar,

in Hells Angels territory.

Bent Svane Nielsen,

who goes by the name Blondie,

stabbed two members of Bullshit

right there on the spot,

and they both died from their wounds.

[woman] Makrellen, why do you

go around k*lling each other?

- Where's the fun in that?

- I wish I knew. It's not.

Blondie, the fat b*stard, is locked up

in Vestre. That can't be fun.

[ominous music playing]

[Norton] After the killings,

there continues to be constant

and escalating clashes

between Bullshit and Hell's Angels.

This leads to a decision

within HA ranks

that the only solution

is to make a loud, decisive statement

and take out the president of Bullshit.

It's like if you're faced with a snake,

the only thing to do

is to take off its head.

It boils over on May 25th, 1984

when Jørn "Jønke" Nielsen

gets in the back of a Volkswagen van

procured specifically

for the purpose of the assassination.

He gets in and waits.

Later that morning,

Makrellen and his wife, Pia,

leave the property

and they get into their car.

They begin heading into Christiania,

where they sell weed every day.

As they're getting into the car,

Jørn "Jønke" Nielsen

jumps out of the van,

and proceeds to run out

in front of Makrellen and Pia's car

and unloads an entire magazine,

through the windshield,

k*lling Makrellen in front of Pia.

[quiet dramatic music playing]

Bullshit later gets a new president,

going by the name of Høvding.

Anker Walther Markus is his name,

and he stood out among both

the hippies and the bikers.

[Nielsen] He looked like a Viking,

with a long beard

and hair like Erik the Red.

Um, leather vest with fringes.

[Norton] Høvding is the most senior

member of Bullshit. He's a big guy.

And he dresses more

like a medieval knight of the road

than he does a typical biker.

[Tuxen] One time, we were smoking a joint

in the community kitchen.

We were having a great time,

until Høvding showed up.

He looked like a Viking.

He had a baseball bat,

he was going

He was staring people down, I froze.

I was like,

"f*ck, he's going to bash my head in."

He stood there looking at me,

then went [laughs]

"Pretty boy." And he left.

[exhales relief] Yikes.

He was really unpleasant.

[Larsen] The Bullshit bikers

are different from the rest

of the Christiania community,

not just in appearance,

but also in behavior.

They're menacing, belligerent, violent,

and that's at odds

with the peace-loving ideology

at the foundation of Christiania.

[Lykke] In 1985, we had a big meeting

with Bullshit, at the cinema.

Three or four of their members

had been k*lled.

So, Bullshit is under a lot of pressure.

Um The meeting lasted

three or four hours,

and we laid out a set of demands.

If they wanted to stay in Christiania,

it had to be on Christiania's terms.

They were not to have motorcycles

in Christiania

or Bullshit-related back-patches.

Um, no carrying weapons.

And if anyone from Bullshit were

to break Christiania's rules,

especially in regard to violence,

we the citizens, have the power

to kick them out of Christiania

without the group interfering, defending,

or in any way supporting the member.

We even created this written charter,

which Høvding,

the president of Bullshit, signed.

On December 22nd, 1985,

Bullshit is having a Christmas party

at their clubhouse on Amager.

At some point during the evening

a few members decide to leave,

and go continue the party elsewhere.

They go to Nemoland in Christiania.

Unbeknownst to them, 15 minutes prior,

three heavily armed men arrived,

and were waiting for Høvding

and his group to show up.

Good evening.

In Christiania, Copenhagen,

Bullshit's acting president,

38-year-old Anker Walther Markus,

was k*lled this morning by g*nf*re.

[Norton] The bloody drama

took place at Nemo Cafe

in the early hours of the morning.

About 20 people were present,

and witness to the event.

Høvding was found near the exit.

He had been shot

by eight nine-millimeter rounds.

RUM - BAR KITCHEN - BATHROOM

Høvding was gunned down in the sh**ting,

and an innocent Christianite,

who just happened to be there,

was hit as well.

The members of Bullshit tried to tell us

that if Høvding had been allowed to be

armed, it wouldn't have ended like that.

We caught flak for that.

Three members of the Black Sheep

biker group have been incarcerated.

All were charged with double homicide,

on Saturday, in Freetown Christiania.

The chaotic culture of Bullshit

comes to a head

when a guy going by the name

Portøren disappears.

Police get a tip that this Portøren

has actually been k*lled,

and the perpetrator is found

to be among Bullshit's own ranks.

The police have already known

for some time now

that a member of the group

has gone missing.

They get a tip to go out and look for him

at the Multimediehuset,

which at this time was Bullshit's primary

hangout in Christiania.

MULTIMEDIA HOUSE

The squad had been digging for weed

at Multimediehuset that summer.

PREBEN JØRGENSEN

RIOT SQUAD

And on the spot

where they had started the dig

new concrete had been poured.

So they start excavating.

As they gradually

broke the concrete apart,

they realized

that they had hit the right spot.

Someone was down there.

It was Portøren.

[intriguing music playing]

They received information

that someone was k*lled

and that the person had been

encased in concrete.

We arrived to take over,

as the next shift.

By then they had already dug him up,

and they'd already transported

the body away.

We stood out there guarding the site,

we were helping to secure the area.

I remember standing

by the concrete blocks,

and you could clearly see

the shape of this person,

and you could see

some fingernails still caught

in the concrete.

And then there was

the smell of death.

Once you have smelled it

you'll never forget.

It's a distinctive smell.

It still lingered there.

It's overwhelming because you know

that a person has been k*lled.

It was the first time I experienced that.

If that doesn't affect you

then I think you're wired wrong as a cop.

[Jørgensen] Of course, I'd like to know

who from Bullshit did it.

We could look at who was in jail

and who was out.

Who was at large,

and which of the guys at large

would be capable of that?

[whistles] Peter Panik.

[Norton] PP, or Peter Panik,

is know throughout Bullshit

as a pretty belligerent character.

Um, he also happened to be

the one member

who k*lled

the only Hells Angels related person

during the w*r

between Bullshit and Hells Angels.

[Jørgensen] Peter Panik

was mentally disturbed, to put it plainly.

He was so dangerous that even his fellow

g*ng members were afraid of him.

He was unpredictable.

Completely unpredictable.

It turns out that Portøren had been k*lled

in an accidental sh**ting

at the Bullshit clubhouse on Amager.

PP, or Peter Panik,

had been playing with a g*n,

and at one point,

it unintentionally went off.

Portøren was shot and k*lled instantly.

In a state of collective, um, well it was

panic, I guess you could call it,

the group decided to dispose

of the body by casting it into the floor.

Finding Portøren's body

would be the beginning of the end

for Bullshit

and their presence in Christiania.

The sh**ting

and the subsequent discovery of the body

not only compelled the Christianites to

finally evict Bullshit once and for all,

but also outright ban the wearing

of biker vests in Christiania.

The biker club Bullshit has been

driven out of Christiania,

and they have virtually no influence

anymore in the Danish biker world.

[Norton] After the death of Høvding,

a member by the name of Krølle

becomes Bullshit's new president.

In 1988, he calls the Hells Angels

at their clubhouse on Titangade and says,

"We've shuttered the club

and burned our vests."

That marks the end of the first biker w*r.

It was over.

It was predictable that it would end

like that for Bullshit.

I mean they were

so far out of their league

when they started messing with the Hell's

Angels and their supporting clubs.

In the 1980s, we had

a lot of violence surrounding Bullshit.

However, that period opened up

the weed market

to other people and groups

who may not be bikers,

but who are hardcore criminals

with violent methods

of getting their points across.

There was an ugly vibe around the weed

market in the late eighties.

In 1988, I was serving out

my first prison sentence.

There, I met one

of Christiania's drug kingpins.

[quiet dramatic music playing]

He was impressed

by how I dealt with conflict,

and asked me to work for him

when I got out.

He got out about a year or so later.

Three months after that,

I was released too.

When I came out,

there's a BMW in the parking lot.

He said, "Today is the day."

I thought, "I might have hit

the motherload with this one." [chuckles]

I was brought in

as just a bodyguard at first.

The first time I went

to Christiania with him,

we went to a place called Nemoland.

Some young punks were playing pool,

and I signed up on the board,

to get in line to play next.

But they didn't leave,

so I asked what was up.

One of them says, "Go outside and wait.

Your turn will come."

I had a violent mindset back then.

So I head-butted one guy

and punched the other guy in the face.

Then, it was our turn.

That's how I dealt with Christiania.

After a relatively short while,

I was made a full member,

on equal ground

with other members of the organization.

They knew I was trustworthy.

There were three of us at the top.

We received approximately

one ton of hashish

every six, or seven weeks,

by truck, uh, from Holland.

[Norton] Throughout the late 1970s

and into the eighties,

the vast majority of the hashish

that came into Christiania

comes from Holland.

The process of importing cannabis

majorly evolved,

it shifted from small,

ad-hoc batches to larger shipments.

Deals, had previously been

unplanned and improvisational,

and now there was a fixed supply chain.

Some of the, um, kingpins,

they increasingly started to take on

a sort of wholesaler's role,

bringing hash into Christiania

where it was then sold to pushers,

who resold it, in turn, to buyers.

At that point, the police

had had no clear strategy

for how to fight the large scale cannabis

trade that was surging in Christiania.

The Riot Squad is deployed

and conducts its operations,

but they only are able

to confiscate a few grams.

They are struggling to try to contain the

massive weed trade that's always going on.

[riot officer] We're sitting

in Fredens Ark, on the gable,

and the camera is pointed down at,

uh, Pusher Street.

We also did some raids

on Pusher Street during the daytime.

We had to get in.

We sent in a few guys first.

We would observe them.

In his right hand, he's holding a bag

with half a kilo of hash in it.

Watch the woman in orange.

She's talking to him

because he's a customer.

He takes a big whiff.

There were some good vantage points

overlooking Christiania,

to find out where they hid stuff

and who went where.

The one in white bites off a piece.

Four grams is a few hundred.

They had guards looking out for us.

When they spotted us, they'd yell,

"The cops are here!"

She's getting another bar.

She's sold out, so "dad" resupplies her

with a bit more.

They've spotted the cop,

so they start to leave.

They're coming from all sides.

The dealer disappeared.

Our job was to observe

and arrest them with their weed,

so we got them.

A riot officer just came over

and stopped her.

She already handed it off.

We wanted to make them

as uncomfortable as possible.

[dramatic music playing]

[Norton] In the late eighties,

the authorities began to require liquor

licenses at the bars in Christiania,

the same way

as with any other establishments

serving alcohol in the city.

The authorities implemented this

because if Christiania's bars are required

to get liquor licenses,

the licensing police

can then enter any bar and inspect them.

Then If they find the sale

of or other crimes related to hash

in the bar in question,

the licensing law can simply be used

to shut the place down.

But the Christianites,

at first, were not interested

in requiring the issuance of licenses.

So, the police decide to put pressure

on the Christianites

with a major alcohol raid operation

to catch them off guard, so to speak.

[people shouting]

Today, the police conducted

raids at 13 ill*gal bars in Christiania,

which led to violent clashes

between young people and police.

The idea was if you remove the beer

then maybe we could bring them to heel.

[Lykke] 300 to 400 officers

showed up in the morning

and cleared out

maybe 14 establishments selling alcohol.

That was pretty shocking.

That caused a major riot.

[people shouting]

They were pissed at us for going in

and clearing out all the bars.

The whole situation just escalated

and eventually culminated

in a full-blown battle

out on Prinsessegade.

[people shouting]

For a couple weeks following

what took place on Prinsessegade,

all of the bars were closed.

Then we started issuing

individual licenses.

An ulterior motive

was for the licensees to make sure

that no weed was being sold

at their places of business,

because then

they could lose their licenses.

As a result, the weed trade

was pushed out of the cafes

and into the open.

When the weed sale was moved out,

everything changed in Christiania.

There was an enormous rise

in activity by the main entrance,

which caused a lot of problems.

[Lykke] We lost control of the entrance

located at Bådsmandsstræde

and, um, Prinsessegade

There were reports of violence,

and at night, people were being mugged,

and having their money taken.

So, we ended up closing that

entrance with railroad ties and concrete,

and then we set up a new entrance,

which was located on Prinsessegade.

CHRISTIANIA

At the same time, we cleared out

the cannabis trade on Prærien

and walked down

between the opera and the bakery

and drew up a yellow line.

Then we went to the other end

and drew up a yellow line

between the Venushuset building

and the hotel.

We decided that cannabis

could be sold there.

That was the precise moment

that Pusher Street was born.

It was the start of the period

where Christiania, in some way, tried

to set up rules for the cannabis trade,

to try to make it bearable

for the community.

- [quiet dramatic music playing]

- [dog barking]

[Norton] After Pusher Street

had been established,

it became increasingly difficult

for the police to work in the area.

And that's not something

the police are very happy about.

And so, to mount a more targeted effort,

they decided they were going

to set up a special Christiania patrol,

which would be dedicated

to work in Christiania.

ON THE NEXT EPISODE

Their job was to shut down Pusher Street,

and they were fierce.

You th*gs!

[Andersen] Things got rough,

that's for sure.

And the batons came out

to assert our control.

You're all pigs in pig suits!

They would force you down onto

the ground and put a knee on your back.

Kick your shin and lay you down.

Before too long people

were throwing rocks.

[people shouting]

It's lights out if you catch one

of those in the head.

There was a whole line of police

officers with shields.

They liked to draw blood.

Christiania was shrouded in tear gas.

You couldn't go anywhere.

They knocked on my door,

so I went to check it out.

When I opened the door, there was

someone standing there with a hood on.

Then a baseball bat

was swung straight at my head.

[tense dramatic music playing]