This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Residents of the self-proclaimed autonomous Christiania neighbourhood in Copenhagen have torn down market stalls selling hash after a man shot two police officers and a bystander.

One of the officers is in a critical condition and the other officer and the bystander are stable after the incident on Wednesday, police said. The 25-year-old gunman, a suspected drug dealer, fled the scene and was later injured in a shootout with police south of the city. He died at Copenhagen university hospital.

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The violence in Christiania marks an escalation in clashes between police and people selling hash in the neighbourhood, a largely self-governing enclave created when hippies occupied abandoned barracks in 1971.

On Friday morning some of Christiania’s 1,000 inhabitants were pictured on Denmark’s TV 2 station using saws, cordless drills and crowbars to dismantle drug stalls on “Pusher Street”, where the trade is concentrated.

Risenga Manghezi, a community spokesman, said: “It is important that we do this today with the wounded police officer in our thoughts. But we cannot guarantee that they won’t pop up again, unfortunately.”

Many Christiania residents have liberal attitudes toward drugs, but are uncomfortable with the presence of criminal gangs running the hash industry.