Police officers stand guard at a cordoned area after a masked man attacked people with a sword at a school in Trollhattan, western Sweden. Photo: Reuters
A masked man brandishing a sword broke into a school in Sweden on Thursday, killing two people and seriously wounding two others before being shot by police.
The attack took place in the southwestern town of Trollhattan at a school for children aged between six and 15, shocking a nation where such violence is rare.
One teacher was found dead at the school, while a second victim died in hospital several hours later. Swedish media reported the second victim was a young boy.
Police said they shot the assailant at the scene but did not confirm his condition. The man, who was reportedly in his 20s, was taken to hospital for treatment.
“We cannot confirm the second victim’s identity yet as the family is in the process of being informed,” hospital spokesman Nicklas Claesson said. Hospital staff had previously confirmed that two boys, aged 11 and 15, were in critical condition with stab wounds, while another teacher who was seriously wounded in the attack was also being operated on.
The assailant, a 21-year-old man from Trollhattan who was shot by police at the scene, was also in critical condition, they said.
A pupil and her parent leaves the primary and middle school in Trollhattan. Photo: AFP
Media reports said the assailant was wearing a Star Wars mask, and school children initially thought it was a prank.
“When we first saw him, we thought it was a joke. He was wearing a mask and black clothes and (carrying) a long sword. Some students wanted to take their picture with him and feel the sword,” one unidentified student told news agency TT.
When the man started attacking people, he quickly realised it wasn’t a joke and fled as the assailant went from classroom to classroom looking for victims.
TT said several knives were used in the attack.
Police said there was “a lot of confusion” at the school, saying there were still pupils and teachers inside more than two hours after the attack.
According to its website, the Kronan school has around 400 pupils, including many newly-arrived immigrants.
Swedish media described it as a “problem school”.
It had been criticised by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate for its lax security and on account of a number of disruptions which prevented the pupils from learning.
Police cordon off an area around Kronan school in Trollhattan after the sword attack. Photo: Reuters
Teachers had complained to the inspectorate about the school library and cafe being open to the public and creating an insecure environment for the children, TT reported.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was expected to visit the town later on Thursday, the Swedish parliament's Twitter account said.
“This is a black day for Sweden,” Lofven said.
“My thoughts go to the victims and their families, the students and staff, and the entire community. No words can describe what they’re going through right now.”
Crisis teams were at the school assisting parents and students.
But some parents outside were unhappy at the way the school handled the crisis.
“No one from the school called me. I found out what happened from a neighbour when I was carrying out the trash. I got into my car and came here,” one father told TT after being reunited with his young daughter.
The girl, who was not identified, said the head teacher had come into her classroom and told them to stay inside and lock the door.
“We didn’t know what was happening,” she said.
Trollhattan is an industrial town of 57,000 and home to the former Swedish carmaker Saab which filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
School attacks are rare in normally tranquil Sweden.
A 1961 school shooting in Kungalv, in southwestern Sweden, left one person dead and six others injured.
No other mass shootings have occurred since then, though at least one attack has been foiled, in the southern city of Malmo in 2004. Other threats have been issued but not followed through.
Trollhättan (Sweden) (AFP) - A sword-wielding masked man who killed two people at a Swedish school with many immigrant pupils was motivated by racism, police said Friday, as hostility towards refugees mounts across Europe.
Investigators in the southwestern Swedish town of Trollhattan confirmed that Thursday's school attack was a "racially motivated" hate crime, based on the 21-year-old assailant's "attire, his behaviour at the scene of the crimes".
Police investigator Thord Haraldsson said the assailant targeted "those with dark complexions", with the investigation so far "pointing to Nazism".
Police also found documents at the killer's home indicating the attack "was planned, and a hate crime," he said, adding that the killer left a "kind of suicide note".
The assailant, identified in the media as Anton Lundin-Pettersson, went from classroom to classroom at the Kronan school for six to 15-year-olds, wearing black clothes and a Darth Vader-like mask and German WWII helmet.
Stalking through the school, he killed one teacher and a teenage student, and injured another teacher and student who both remained in hospital on Friday.
All of those wounded were of immigrant origin.
On the killer's social media accounts, he comes across as a loner fascinated by Hitler, Nazi Germany and the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which is critical of Islam and rising immigration.
A country of 9.8 million, Sweden expects to receive up to 190,000 asylum applications this year -- putting it among the EU states with the highest proportion of refugees per capita as the continent struggles with a massive influx of migrants.
Support for the far-right has mounted as Sweden's ability to house and integrate the new arrivals comes under strain.
- Immigration debate -
An opinion poll on Friday put the Sweden Democrats on 15.7 percent, up from the 12.9 percent it won in the 2014 election when it became the country's third-largest party. Other polls have in recent months suggest it has become Sweden's biggest party.
The Sweden Democrats recently said they wanted a referendum to be held on the government's generous immigration policy, though they have little chance of obtaining such a vote.
More than a dozen arson attacks this year have targeted refugee reception centres and apartments in Sweden, reducing some of them to cinders.
On Friday, 200 to 300 residents of Trollhattan held a demonstration, shouting "Protect our children!" and "No to racism!".
At the local mosque, the imam suggested Sweden's immigration debate was partly to blame for the killings.
"How can a young man plan such a horrific attack? We don't have all the facts yet, but we know that innocent people died. Maybe because of a distorted debate," Abdi Rizak Wabari said.
Anti-racism magazine Expo said a "rhetoric of hatred" was blowing across the Scandinavian country.
"The risk is that we will see an escalation, legitimised by doomsday rhetoric and fomented in hatred's digital echo-chamber," editor-in-chief Daniel Poohl wrote.
- Attacks on migrants -
The rising anti-immigration trend can be seen across Europe, as more than 600,000 migrants and refugees -- mainly fleeing violence in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- have made the dangerous journey to the continent this year, according to the UN.
In Germany, which is bracing for up to a million asylum requests this year, officials said Thursday they had foiled an extremist plot to torch two asylum centres, arresting 13 members of a far-right movement.
Reports have also emerged of assaults on boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Greece in the Aegean Sea.
In Switzerland, the rightwing populist SVP registered a record score in recent elections, and Austria's far-right posted its best-ever election result in Vienna earlier this month.
With at least 9,000 people landing on Europe's beaches every day, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has urged EU nations to share the burden for helping those in need.
"Let's not write poems or make promises, let's act because there is urgency," he said.
"We must be conscious of our responsibility."
Sweden's left-wing coalition government and the centre-right opposition agreed Friday on a 21-point programme aimed at easing the strain on Sweden's infrastructure caused by the large influx of refugees.
Among the measures are higher income requirements for family reunifications, the possibility to issue temporary residency permits, better distribution of refugees by requiring municipalities to accept them, and speeding up processing times for asylum applications and deportations of rejected asylum seekers.
Swedish sword killer 'was Hitler fan, targeted immigrants'
AFP
October 24, 2015, 2:30 am
Trollhättan (Sweden) (AFP) - The 21-year-old sword-wielding attacker who killed a teacher and a teenager at a Swedish school admired Hitler and had far-right sympathies, media reports revealed Friday as police confirmed his motivation was racist.
Police investigator Thord Haraldsson said the killer, identified in the press as Trollhattan native Anton Lundin-Pettersson, targeted "those with dark complexions".
Police also found documents at his home indicating the attack "was planned, and a hate crime," he said, adding that the killer left a "kind of suicide note".
Wearing black clothes and a Darth Vader-like mask and armed with a sword, the assailant went from classroom-to-classroom in search of victims at Kronan school for children aged between six and 15.
Police believe he picked the school because many of its students are immigrants.
Before police shot and killed him, he managed to kill a teacher and critically wound a teenage student who later died of his wounds.
Another student, aged 15, sustained critical stab wounds during the attack along with a teacher who was seriously injured.
All of those wounded were of immigrant origin, police said.
Although the killer had no criminal record, details emerged in the press suggesting he was a loner who admired Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany and the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which is critical of Islam and of rising immigration to the Scandinavian country.
On his Facebook and YouTube accounts -- now closed down -- he comes across as a person who listens to death metal and hard rock bands such as Rammstein and Pain.
He was also talented at lathe-work, competing in the finals of the Swedish youth national championships.
- 'In his own world' -
But he was also fascinated by films about Nazis, the Third Reich and World War II, and on Facebook he "liked" several debates by Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson, as well as anti-immigrant blogger Angry Foreigner and a video called "Nazi Generator 2015", where toy figures are incinerated to the sound of German marching music, recalling Nazi gas chambers.
Despite those views, those who knew him described him as polite and quiet, saying they never would have guessed he would carry out such an attack.
"He was a loner. He played video games, lived in his own world," a former classmate told the Expressen daily.
"He was always dressed in black, or in camouflage clothes," a friend told Aftonbladet.
Anti-racist magazine Expo said his profile was similar to that of other racist attackers.
"We see the trend in the US of young angry white men who become radicalised on Internet forums. This act could be seen as part of that trend of people who think it is their mission to save the white race," editor-in-chief Daniel Poohl told AFP.
The killer had no links to the Kronan school, and no one there seemed to know him.
When he arrived, some unsuspecting students thought his get-up was a prank or a Halloween costume and even posed with him for pictures.
Police on Friday said video footage from inside the school showed the assailant talking to "fair-skinned" students not attacking them.
"We can also see what he did to those with dark complexions," investigator Thord Haraldsson said.
Around 20 percent of Trollhattan's population of 57,000 are of foreign origin and the school is located in an area which is emblematic of Sweden's failure to integrate its immigrants: an impoverished, segregated neighbourhood with high unemployment, drug problems and poor school performances.
On Friday, police were still looking for clues at his apartment in a middle-class neighbourhood of Trollhattan, about five kilometres (three miles) from the school.
The Trollhatten killer has been identified as 21-year-old Anton Lundin Pettersson. Photo: AFP
A “suicide note” and the manner in which he picked out victims by the colour of their skin to be mercilessly cut down with his sword marked out the armed man who rampaged through a Swedish school on Thursday as a racist with Nazi sympathies, police have said.
The city of Trollhättan, where the attacks took place, was still in shock as hundreds of mourners gathered at the school on Friday evening to honour the dead, grieve – and express their anger.
On the same day that the government and the opposition announced plans to cope with an anticipated influx of 160,000 refugees in Sweden this year – making it harder for them to remain in the country – Swedes have been forced to question whether anti-immigrant sentiment is creating a breeding ground for violent racism.
On Friday night police confirmed that Anton Lundin Pettersson, 21, earlier identified by Swedish media as the culprit, was the attacker. His home was cordoned off on Thursday afternoon by dozens of police, who emptied the apartment.
“The perpetrator chose dark-skinned people, not white. We are convinced it was a hate crime with a racist perspective,” said Niclas Hallgren, chief of police in Trollhättan.
Police found a handwritten letter in his apartment, “a sort of suicide note”, which showed he had planned the attack, and in which he said he expected it would be his final act. The killer, who left a 15-year-old male pupil and a teaching assistant dead, was gunned down by police shortly after the alarm was raised, and died two hours later in hospital. Two people, aged 15 and 41, are still fighting for their lives after the attack.
“He was dressed in a way that suggested a racist background, and video showed he acted in a military fashion. His actions and the way he looked draws the mind to the Nazis,” Hallgren told journalists.
Pettersson’s Facebook and YouTube pages revealed that he liked and shared movies glorifying the Nazis. His final Facebook post was to upload some Nazi Halloween music, students at the school said.
Pettersson had recently signed up to a campaign by the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats for a referendum to halt refugees coming to Sweden, although he had no obvious political affiliation. He had no criminal record.
Mourners pay their respects outside Kronan school. Photo: Reuters
The young Swede entered Kronan school on Thursday morning wearing a Darth Vader-like mask, a cape, and carrying a sword. “I am your father,” he said, echoing a famous phrase uttered by the Star Wars character in the film The Empire Strikes Back. One of the students asked if they could be photographed with him, thinking it was a Halloween prank; he nodded but stayed silent.
Teaching assistant Lavin Eskandar, 20, then challenged him to take off his mask, yelled at children to run and tried to overpower the man, but he was stabbed and died at the scene. His family paid tribute to him as “a king and a hero in the eyes of the entire city”.
Pettersson then marched around the school, seeking targets. Ahmed Hassan, 15, died after he opened his classroom door to the attacker and was stabbed in the abdomen, according to reports. Ahmed was born in Somalia and came to Sweden three years ago.
Further clues to the killer’s motives were apparent at his home in a nondescript apartment block on Tunhemsvägen, a residential area. Directly opposite stands a school – yet Pettersson chose instead to drive a few minutes away to Kronan school in Kronogården, a suburb where most people have immigrant backgrounds, to carry out his attacks on minority ethnic people. Pettersson’s neighbours declined to speak to the Guardian.
“This offence has echoes of the Laser Man [a racist who shot immigrants in Stockholm in the 1990s] and [recent] shootings in Malmö,” said interior minister Anders Ygeman.
Police in the city said they had anticipated violence and adapted their crisis training in response to school attacks in the US and neighbouring Finland.
“We are certain that Sweden is part of the global system, and when we see such awful crimes in other countries, we are not any different and we have to be prepared,” Hallgren said.
People light candles outside Kronan school. Photo: AP
It was a fortunate coincidence that a patrol had been nearby the school when the alarm was raised, otherwise it was certain that more would have died, he said. But when they got to the scene they took action swiftly.
The revelation on Friday that the government would attempt to stem the flow of refugees to Sweden marks an official recognition that the country is finding it hard to cope – immigration officials on Thursday doubled their estimate of the numbers coming to Sweden this year. The centre-left coalition reached an agreement with the opposition to end permanent residency permits for refugees, speed up expulsions of failed asylum seekers, and attempt to re-allocate up to 54,000 refugees from within Sweden to other EU countries.
Sweden’s official openness to refugees, backed by most of the media, has long been out of step with misgivings among the public about immigration. While there has been a welcoming reaction to this summer’s refugees crisis, polls over more than two decades have consistently showed a plurality opposed to receiving more refugees, according to Anders Sundell, a political scientist at Gothenburg University.
“There is a large difference between what the politicians think and the general public, and the media have not questioned the politicians until recently,” Sundell said.
The official unity on this issue has encouraged opponents of increased immigration to imagine a conspiracy between politicians and the “politically correct elite”, he said. While pan-European surveys suggest Sweden is still the most tolerant nation in the EU, there has been a polarisation of opinion, with people seeking support for anti-immigrant views on shady rightwing websites.
Trollhättan has a long history of hate crime, said Ove Sernhede, professor of social work at Gothenburg University – the first mosque to be burnt down in Sweden in the early 1990s was in the city, which is known for a hardcore of rightwing extremists.
“During the last few weeks we have seen arson or attempted arson attacks on asylum lodging reported every day. And now these tragic events in Trollhättan,” Sernhede said.
As people gathered outside Kronan school in the dying autumn sunshine on Friday evening, some were in tears while others shouted anti-racist slogans. The crowd was overwhelmingly of immigrant origin. Trollhöttan is the most segregated city in Sweden, according to research by Sundell.
Ardyan, 17, came to the school where his friend had been killed. The immigrant from Kosovo said he was scared to go out in the evenings because racism was a problem in the city. Hardi Zengana, 17, whose parents are Iraqi Kurds, had studied at the school and saw the killings as an attack on multiculturalism.
“The area is very multicultural, we knew racism existed but not in this area. We had almost a brotherhood here, it didn’t matter where you were from,” he said. “But now it no longer feels safe anymore. I don’t know how these children in the school will continue, knowing what happened.”
His friend Ivan Culjak, also 17, from Croatia, said he would never have believed something like this could happen in Sweden – it was something he knew about only from the US.
“This is a tragedy for some and a warning for others in this area,” he said. “There could be revenge, but it could also lead to other attacks happening. It is a threat to everybody.”
