Stockholm

A semi-fictional account, including most of the names of the players being changed, of the event that resulted in the creation of the term Stockholm Syndrome to describe people who feel empathy and sometimes more for their captor(s) is presented. In 1973, a lone armed man, thought to be American, storms the downtown Stockholm branch of Kreditbanken. Ultimately the authorities, led by Chief of Police Mattsson learn of his at-gunpoint demand: $1 million US, the release of convicted bank robber and murderer Gunnar Sorensson, and a Mustang Boss 302 like the one Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt (1968) as a getaway vehicle for the two of them. By the time Mattsson gets Sorensson to the bank – unknown to the gunman, who is thought to be well known robber Kaj Hansson, Sorenson having made a plea deal with Mattsson for his cooperation against the gunman – there are three hostages at the bank, all the others that were in the bank at the time let go. Arguably the most lucid of the three is bank …