“A school should be a safe place,” says the police chief in Malmo. A high school there has become the scene of a deadly attack. The day after, there are more questions than answers.
Terrible act in Malmö, Sweden: two teachers die in a school. A high school student is suspected of murder. The 18-year-old was arrested just ten minutes after the first emergency calls were made on Monday. Whether and how he was connected to the two killed women is still unclear, as is the motive for the crime.
“It’s a tremendously sad day. Yesterday two people were murdered at a school here in Malmo,” local police chief Petra Stenkula said at a press conference on Tuesday. “A school should be a safe place, safe for students and safe for teachers and safe for employees. Nobody should have to fear violence in a school.”
The incident happened late Monday afternoon. The police initially reported an allegedly serious crime that was being dealt with at the high school in the center of Sweden’s third largest city. The first emergency calls came in at 5:12 p.m., and the perpetrator was arrested at 5:22 p.m., Stenkula said.
Officials found the suspect and two injured people on the third floor of the school building. Police believe the perpetrator acted alone.
Teachers seriously injured
The two injured – apparently the two women – were taken to the hospital by ambulance. The sad police update followed late in the evening: The two died as a result of the violence inflicted on them. They were each between 50 and 60 years old. Both were employees and teachers at the school, as the education director of the city of Malmö, Anneli Schwartz, said on Tuesday at Stenkula’s side.
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Around 50 people were on the school grounds at the time of the crime. According to reports, some of the students had been rehearsing for a musical, among other things. Your school has been around for over 600 years, and around 1,100 students last went to grammar school.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was dismayed by the crime. “It is with great concern and dismay that I have received the news that two people died yesterday after a serious violent crime at a school in Malmo,” the Prime Minister said in a comment to Swedish media on Tuesday morning. Her thoughts are with her families and friends, but also with all students and colleagues at the high school.
Malmö’s fight against crime
A lot of good things have actually happened in Malmö in the fight against crime in recent years since the city made negative headlines a long time ago due to serious crimes. Measures and programs have been launched by the authorities, including in the problem district of Rosengård, where soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic comes from. Other cities, which have also been fighting rampant gang crime for a long time, took Malmö’s approach as a model.
Shots and deliberate explosions, such as those that supposedly peaceful Sweden has been experiencing for several years, did not stop at the southern part of the country either. There have also been several armed attacks on schools, most recently in January in Kristianstad and last year in Varberg and Eslöv. The targets of these attacks were students and teachers, there were injuries in each case – but not dead like this time in Malmö.
Armed with ax and knife
The latest act apparently happened without any warning: the 18-year-old student from nearby Trelleborg had no criminal record. The police are now trying to find out more about his personality.
She confiscated several weapons – firearms were not among them. According to information from the newspaper Aftonbladet, he is said to have been armed with an ax and a knife.