HS Helsinki | Olli Nokkala watched from the balcony as the heavily armed police searched for an “armed person” – Nokkala later realized that the police could be looking for him

From Lauttasaari Olli Nokkala recently updated the cover photo of his Facebook account. The picture shows headlines from the newspapers’ websites on August 23:

“No dangerous person was found in Helsinki’s Lauttasaari”

“An armed person was searched for in Lauttasaari on Tuesday evening”

“The police were looking for a possibly armed person in Helsinki’s Lauttasaari”

Nokkala changed the headlines to the cover photo of his Facebook account because he believes he himself was the “armed person” the police were looking for, albeit unknowingly.

“I was waiting for my friend at the bus stop to get the house key from him. He was going on a trip and I needed a key to water his flowers,” says Nokkala.

“I was ahead of schedule, I stood there, I walked in front, I listened to music. The guy came from the bus, and a little later I looked from the balcony to see what they were [poliisit] looking for.”

News The big operation on Lauttasaari was published, among other things, on HS’s website on Tuesday evening, August 23. Already at that time, the headline said that the police doubted the authenticity of the report.

Read more: An armed person was wanted in Lauttasaari on Tuesday evening – The police doubt the veracity of the report

Nokkala says that she woke up to think about the police operation in more detail only later.

“In the baseball group of the city, there was talk that an armed person is moving in Laru. There was panic in the Lauttasaari Facebook group,” Nokkala recalls.

Thing remained to bother Nokkala, and he returned to the news. The location of the police operation at the intersection of Itälahdenkatu and Nahkahousuntie and the time of Tuesday evening coincided with his own movements.

“I was just wondering if I saw someone. Then I was startled that no damn, are they looking for me?”

“I made the most confused call of my life to 112. I asked if it was possible that it was me they were looking for,” Nokkala says she asked.

Nokkala was asked to describe her hair, clothes and other appearance. The emergency number was told that “yes, this pretty much matches the profiling of the wanted person. 100 percent,” says Nokkala.

Nokkala says that he does have dreadlocks and that he probably does not follow the average dress code of a basic Lauttasaari resident, but that he does not have any weapons and is not dangerous in any way.

Olli Nokkala invited the police for coffee. They did come, standing behind the front door of Nokkala’s workplace, a little apart from each other and, according to Nokkala’s interpretation, clearly cautious.

“I asked them what kind of day have you had, mine has been a bit special.”

HS has not received confirmation from the police that the wanted person and Nokkala are the same person.

Cam fish says that he was “shocked” by what happened. Nokkala’s perception that a report was made to the police based on another person’s external habitus seemed unpleasant.

“I told my friends about it. They were of the opinion that I should thoroughly find out what happened. They think it’s terrible that people are bullied just based on their appearance.”

Since then, Nokkala has already laughed at the absurdity of the case. It can also be seen in the publication he made to Lauttasaari’s Facebook group.

“15 patrols and the Bear group were called after me when I was standing at the bus station for a quarter of an hour. According to some ‘villager’, I was dangerous and armed,” Nokkala wrote in the Lauttasaari Facebook group.

“It’s also a kind of record to get to Iltalehti, Ilta-Sanom and Hesar just by standing on a bus pole.”