Politiet undersøker skytingen.

In Norwegian, the definite article is usually attached to the end of the noun instead of being a separate word.

• politi = police

• politiet = the police

• skyting = shooting
• skytingen = the shooting

So instead of writing a separate word for the, Norwegian often adds a definite ending to the noun.

Politiet is the definite form of politi. The ending -et is the definite ending used here.

Grammatically, politiet is singular, even though in English the police often feels plural. In Norwegian, it usually refers to the police as an institution or body, not to several individual police officers.

So in this sentence, politiet is best understood as a singular collective noun meaning the police.

Undersøker is the present tense of å undersøke, which means to investigate, to examine, or to look into.

• å undersøke = to investigate
• undersøker = investigates / is investigating

Norwegian uses the same present-tense form for all subjects:

• jeg undersøker
• du undersøker
• han undersøker
• vi undersøker

So the verb does not change the way English verbs sometimes do.

It can mean both.

Norwegian simple present often covers both:

• English investigates
• English is investigating

So Politiet undersøker skytingen can mean:

• The police investigate the shooting
• The police are investigating the shooting

In most real contexts, the second one is the more natural English translation.

The noun skyting comes from the verb å skyte, meaning to shoot.

The ending -ing is a common way in Norwegian to turn a verb into a noun for an action or event, much like English shoot → shooting.

So:

• å skyte = to shoot
• skyting = shooting
• skytingen = the shooting

Skytingen is definite, so it means the shooting — a specific shooting that the speaker and listener can identify from the context.

En skyting would mean a shooting, which is more indefinite.

Compare:

• Politiet undersøker skytingen. = The police are investigating the shooting.
• Politiet undersøker en skyting. = The police are investigating a shooting.

The sentence you have uses the definite form because it is talking about a particular incident.

Yes, in this sentence it is very similar to English:

• Politiet = subject
• undersøker = verb
• skytingen = object

So the pattern is:

subject + verb + object

This is a normal main-clause pattern in Norwegian. It also fits the Norwegian V2 rule, where the finite verb comes in the second position.

Yes.

Å undersøke is a broad verb. It can mean:

• examine
• inspect
• look into
• investigate

In a police context, investigate is the natural meaning. But the verb itself is not limited only to crime investigations.

For example, a doctor can undersøke a patient, and a scientist can undersøke a problem.

Yes, and that would sound even more specifically like a criminal investigation.

The difference is roughly this:

• undersøke = examine / look into / investigate
• etterforske = investigate a crime formally

So:

• Politiet undersøker skytingen = The police are investigating / looking into the shooting.
• Politiet etterforsker skytingen = The police are formally investigating the shooting.

Both are possible, but etterforsker is more specifically police-and-crime language.

Ø is a vowel sound that English does not really have.

A rough approximation is something like the vowel in British bird or learn, but with more rounded lips.

So in undersøker, the ø is not like English o and not like English e. It is its own vowel sound.

A very rough guide for the whole word is:

undersøker ≈ UN-der-suh-ker

But that is only approximate. The most important thing is to notice that ø is a separate Norwegian vowel.