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School in Malmo: flowers for the dead
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JOHAN NILSSON / EPO
After the deadly attack on two teachers at a school in Malmö, the police have published more details about the arrest of the suspect.
The 18-year-old high school student is said to have been arrested just ten minutes after the first emergency calls in the evening.
He is suspected of murder.
Whether and how he was connected to the two killed women is still unclear, as is the motive for the crime.
The Swedish city is dismayed.
'It is a tremendously sad day.
Yesterday two people were killed 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.«
Ten minutes to arrest
The incident happened late Monday afternoon.
The police initially reported a suspected serious crime 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.
Emergency services found the suspect and two injured people on the third floor of the school building.
The two injured – apparently the two women – were taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Later that evening, the police reported that the two had died as a result of the violence inflicted on them.
Both were in their 50s and 60s and worked as teachers at the school, Malmö City Education Director Anneli Schwartz said.
Police believe the suspect acted alone.
The 18-year-old student from nearby Trelleborg apparently had no criminal record.
The police want to know more about him.
According to her own statements, she confiscated several weapons – firearms were not among them.
According to information from the newspaper Aftonbladet, the alleged perpetrator is said to have been armed with an ax and a knife.
"Concern and Dismay"
Around 50 people are said to have been 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.
Around 1100 students recently went to the Gymnasium.
Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was dismayed by the crime.
"It is with great concern and dismay that I 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.
Her thoughts are with her families and friends, but also with all the students and the workers at the high school.
In Sweden, there had already been attacks on schools in the recent past, most recently in Kristianstad in January and in Varberg and Eslöv last year.
The targets of these attacks had been students and teachers, there had been injuries in each case - but not fatalities like this time in Malmö.
ptz/dpa