Helsinki, the Finnish capital Tuesday at a school north of Helsinki, the capital of Finland, a 12-year-old opened fire, killing one of his classmates and critically wounding two more before being taken into custody, according to authorities.
About 800 students and 90 employees work at the Viertola school in Vantaa, the fourth-largest city in Finland. The school serves students in grades one through nine, or seven to fifteen.
Ilkka Koskimaki, the head of the Eastern Uusimaa police department, stated during a news conference that “today, after 9:00 am, a shooting incident took place at a school… in which a sixth grader, a student of the school, died.” She also said that two other people were “seriously injured.”
The injured person was 12 years old, according to what the police had previously stated. An investigation into murder and attempted murder has been launched.
A witness reported hearing gunfire reverberate through the schoolyard to the Iltalehti newspaper.
“I didn’t realize it was a weapon at first. Children started running across the yard as a horrendous scream was heard, according to the witness.
Numerous police officers could be seen at the school in pictures taken at the site.
According to a police update, the gun-carrying suspect was apprehended in Helsinki in a “calm manner”.
A video of two police officers holding a youngster down by the side of the road in a residential area was captured by Iltalehti and released.
Journalists were informed by the students’ parents that the shooting happened in a classroom.
“Scary” day
The people had been advised by the police to avoid the area and stay inside. In a statement, they said, “Do not open the door to strangers.”
An AFP reporter on the scene said that just after midday, parents who were waiting outside the school were being allowed inside to visit their kids by the police.
The “shocking way” in which the day began was acknowledged by Mari Rantanen, the interior minister of Finland. “I can only imagine the pain and worry that many families are experiencing at the moment,” she wrote in a post on X.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo expressed his “deep shock” and stated he was thinking of the victims, their families, as well as the other students and faculty members.
In the early 2000s, there were two horrific school shootings in Finland.
About 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Helsinki, in November 2007, an 18-year-old man opened fire at a secondary school in Jokela, killing six students, the headmaster, and a nurse. He then turned the gun on himself.
A year later, in September 2008, at a vocational school in the western town of Kauhajoki, 22-year-old Matti Juhani Saari killed eleven people.
Since then, shooting threats have been made to hundreds of schools, according to a Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention article.