Swastika shooter kills 13 at Russian school

Lucas2022-09-26

MOSCOW — A gunman with a swastika on his t-shirt killed 13 people, including seven children, and injured more than 20 at a school in Russia on Monday before killing himself, investigators said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which deals with major crimes, said it was investigating the attacker’s alleged neo-Nazi ties. He named him Artem Kazantsev, a man in his early thirties, and said he had graduated from school.

« Currently, the investigators (…) are conducting a search of his home and studying the personality of the attacker, his opinions and the surrounding environment, » the committee said in a statement. « Checks are being made on his adherence to neo-fascist views and Nazi ideology. »

Investigators released a short video showing the man’s body lying on the floor of a classroom with overturned furniture and papers strewn across the bloodstained floor. He was dressed in all black, with a red swastika in a circle drawn on his T-shirt.

The committee said the six adult victims included teachers and security guards. He said 21 people, including 14 children, were injured.

Tass news agency quoted investigators as saying the attacker was armed with two pistols and a large amount of ammunition.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin « deeply mourns » the dead. He described the incident as « a terrorist act committed by a person who apparently belongs to a neo-fascist organization or group ».

He said doctors, psychologists and neurosurgeons had been sent on Putin’s orders to the scene of the shooting in Izhevsk, about 970 km (600 miles) east of Moscow.

Russia has seen several school shootings in recent years.

In May 2021, a teenager with a gun killed seven children and two adults in the city of Kazan. In April 2022, a gunman killed two children and a teacher at a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk region before committing suicide.

torontosun

Lucas2022-09-26