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Sweden school attack: teacher, pupil and knifeman dead Sweden school attack: horror at death of teacher and pupil
(about 2 hours later)
A teacher and pupil have died after being attacked by a masked man who also died after being shot by police in Sweden. Sweden has reacted with shock and horror after a teacher and pupil were stabbed to death in a school with a high number of immigrants by a masked man who was reported to have far-right sympathies. The man, who posed with students before starting his killing spree, was shot dead by police.
The teacher was the first person to be fatally injured in the attack at the school in Trollhättan, an industrial city near Gothenburg. Swedish media reports said the second victim was a boy, but this could not be immediately confirmed. There were scenes of panic in Trollhättan, an industrial city near Gothenburg, on Thursday as parents and pupils crowded outside Kronan school in the aftermath of the killings among large numbers of police and ambulances.
Two other victims, believed to be pupils, remained in a critical condition, but one had stabilised, according to hospital officials. “It is a black day for Sweden,” said prime minister, Stefan Löfven, before rushing to the city.
Police have said they do not know the motive for the attack. There were conflicting reports as to whether the man was armed with a knife or a sword, or both, when he entered the school at about 10am on Thursday. Students locked themselves in classrooms and cupboards to escape. A teacher died at the scene, while an 11-year-old died later in hospital from stab wounds. Two more students were in a critical condition on Thursday night. Police said they had identified the attacker as a 21-year-old male, but gave no further information.
Police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg told the Associated Press the attacker carried more than one weapon, including “at least one knife-like object”. Fuxborg said police fired two shots, one of which hit the attacker. The killings took place in a school with a high proportion of immigrants, raising fears the killer’s motives may have been racist. The anti-racist organisation Expo, citing reliable sources, said it knew the identity of the attacker, who “during the past month showed clear sympathies with the extreme right and anti-immigration movements”.
One student told Swedish media: “When we first saw him we thought it was a joke. He had a mask and black clothes and a long sword. There were students who wanted to go with him and hold the sword.” Daniel Poohl of the organisation said: “It is too early to say anything concrete about the killer’s motives, but perhaps he was a lone wolf with far-right sympathies. This is traumatic for Sweden, something we haven’t seen before.”
Some witnesses said the attacker was wearing a Star Wars mask. Others took it to be a Halloween prank. Soon after the attacks at around 10am on Thursday morning, a picture emerged of an ordinary school day that turned suddenly into a scene of terror.
Media reports showed scenes of mayhem at the school, with hundreds of people on the street, screaming children, and a large number of police and ambulances. “When we first saw him we thought it was a joke. He had a mask and black clothes and a long sword. There were students who wanted to go with him and hold the sword,” a student at the school told Swedish broadcaster SVT.
Another pupil at the school told TheLocal.se: “One of my classmates’ sisters called her to warn her that there was a murderer at the school. So we locked the door to the classroom, but our teacher was still outside in the corridor. We wanted to warn him, so a few of us went outside and then I saw the murderer, he was wearing a mask and had a sword. Our teacher got stabbed. The murderer started chasing me, I ran into another classroom. If I had not run, I would have been murdered.” Mobile phone images of the suspect show a man in a helmet resembling that used by the Nazis, holding a sword and wearing what was described as a Star Wars mask. According to several witnesses, he allowed himself to be photographed with students, who took it to be a Halloween prank. Police said the man carried more than one weapon, including “at least one knife-like object”.
Police said they still did not know the identity of the attacker, or whether he was a local man. The Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, said on Thursday he was travelling to Trollhättan. “One of my classmates’ sisters called her to warn her there was a murderer at the school,” a teenager at the school told TheLocal.se. “So we locked the door to the classroom, but our teacher was still outside in the corridor. We wanted to warn him, so a few of us went outside and then I saw the murderer, he was wearing a mask and had a sword. Our teacher got stabbed. The murderer started chasing me, I ran into another classroom. If I had not run, I would have been murdered.”
There has been a tense debate over immigration and asylum in Sweden, with the far right seeking to exploit incidents of violence involving immigrants. In August, a failed asylum seeker stabbed two people to death in an Ikea store near Stockholm, causing outrage. There have also been a spate of apparent arson attacks on refugee accommodation in the past week. In a week when Sweden has basked in international attention after Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said the US needed to move closer to Scandinavia, Swedes now fear that, on the contrary, the country is emulating the violence familiar to US schools. No one has died in school violence in Sweden since 1961, when one young person died and six were injured at a shooting at a school near Gothenburg. Police say they foiled a planned school shooting in Malmö in 2004, and threats of violence have occurred elsewhere.
Two hours before the attack in Trollhättan, officials announced Sweden was expecting to receive as many as 190,000 refugees this year double the previous estimates. But the tragedy in Trollhättan has forced Swedes to ask if the traditional openness of their society may be putting pupils and teachers at risk. The school’s cafeteria and library were both open to the public.
The attack took place in Kronogården, a disadvantaged area of the city where more than half the population were born abroad. Trollhättan has been named by researchers the most highly segregated city in Sweden. “Of course schools should be open to society, but not like this, not so anyone can walk in,” said Bo Johansson, head of the teachers’ union.
School attacks are rare in Sweden. Since a shooting incident near Gothenburg in 1961, when six young people were injured and one died, there have been no such attacks, although police say they foiled a planned school shooting in Malmö in 2004, and threats of violence have occurred elsewhere. “I am not sure we want a situation like in the US with detectors and security guards, but in workplaces, offices and apartments you have security why should schools have a worse situation?”
Kronogården was among 38 neighbourhoods named this month as Sweden’s most vulnerable in a report on “forgotten suburbs”. In June, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate fined the city council SKr600,000 (£46,000) for “substantial shortcomings in the areas of security and the study environment” at Kronan school. The inspectorate found a high turnover of staff, who lived in fear of some students and struggled to keep order.
The report’s author, Jan Edling, said: “These suburbs are big trouble and you cannot say that Sweden is an integrated country. We have used these suburbs as a repository for those that do not fit into normal society.” This week, the cross-party education group on Trollhattän city council visited the school to look at the security situation. After Thursday’s attack, councillor Peter Eriksson of the opposition Conservatives said the cafeteria should be closed to the public “because it creates a precarious situation for the students”.
But other councillors defended the school, which was only six years old and had seen substantial investment. “This kind of thing could happen in any school,” said Sofia Andersson, for the ruling Social Democrats in the city.
It is difficult to speak about security measures in a Swedish context because people want an open society, said Magnus Lindgren of the Safer Sweden foundation. “In recent years cities that were already safe have become even more safe, but neighbourhoods that already had problems with crime have got worse – we can see a polarisation,” he said.
With more than 400 pupils, Kronan school is at the heart of Kronogården, a disadvantaged area where more than half the population were born abroad. Trollhättan has been named by researchers as the most highly segregated city in Sweden, with immigrants concentrated in Kronogården. The neighbourhood was among 38 named this month as Sweden’s most vulnerable in a report on “forgotten suburbs”.
There has been a tense debate over immigration and asylum in Sweden, with the far-right seeking to exploit incidents of violence involving immigrants. In August, a refused asylum seeker stabbed two people to death in an Ikea store near Stockholm, causing a storm of outrage.
There has been a spate of apparent arson attacks on refugee accommodation in the past week. Two hours before the attack in Trollhättan, officials announced Sweden was expecting to receive as many as 190,000 refugees this year – twice previous estimates.