Finland school shooting: 12-year-old suspect held after one child is killed, two are wounded

[1/7]Police officers operate at the Viertola comprehensive school in Vantaa, Finland, on April 2, 2024. Three minors were injured in a shooting at the school on Tuesday morning. A suspect, also a minor, has been apprehended. Lehtikuva/MARKKU ULANDER via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

No one has yet spoken on the suspect’s behalf. He will be put in the care of social services because a child cannot be remanded in custody, police said.

Police said the motive was not clear. The handgun’s permit belonged to a relative of the suspect, they said.

Video circulating on social media and unverified by Reuters showed two police kneeling at the side of the suspected shooter who was lying face down on a sidewalk.

The Viertola school has around 800 pupils from first to ninth grade and a staff of 90, according to the municipality.

Anja Hietamies, the mother of an 11-year-old pupil, told Reuters she received a message from her scared daughter after the shooting.

“She said they were in a dark, locked classroom, not allowed to speak on the phone but could send messages,” Hietamies said.

Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said on X: “The day started in a horrifying way…I can only imagine the pain and worry that many families are experiencing at the moment. The suspected perpetrator has been caught.”

Previous school shootings in Finland have put a focus on Finland’s gun policy.

In 2007, student Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot and killed six students, the school nurse, the principal, and himself using a handgun at Jokela High School, near Helsinki.

A year later, in 2008, Matti Saari, another student, opened fire at a vocational school in Kauhajoki in northwest Finland. He killed nine students and one male staff member before turning the gun on himself.

Finland tightened its gun legislation in 2010, introducing an aptitude test for all firearms licence applicants. The minimum age for applicants was also raised to 20 from 18.

It was too early to draw any policy conclusions from Tuesday’s attack, Rantanen told a press conference.

There are more than 1.5 million licensed firearms and about 430,000 licence holders in the nation of 5.6 million people, where hunting and target shooting are popular.

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Reporting by Anne Kauranen and Essi Lehto in Helsinki, Stine Jacobsen and Louise Rasmussen in Copenhagen
Writing by Nick Macfie
Editing by Terje Solsvik, Gwladys Fouche, Peter Graff and Angus MacSwan

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Essi covers business, economy and politics in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Baltic countries. Often writing about Finland’s relationship with neighbouring Russia, Finland and Sweden as new NATO members, border issues, Lapland and other matters of the Northernmost part of the world. Passionate about speed, accuracy and finding the stories that matter.

Source link : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/shooting-incident-finnish-school-police-say-2024-04-02/

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Publish date : 2024-04-02 07:00:00

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