An 18-year-old armed with an ax, knives and Molotov cocktails attacked his high school in southern Germany, injuring eight pupils and a teacher before police shot and arrested him, authorities said.
As the mayhem erupted on Thursday on the third floor, roughly 700 other students fled the building, including some who barricaded a classroom door before running down an emergency staircase. Many took shelter in a nearby office building.
The teenager entered the four-story Carolinum secondary school in Ansbach at 8:30am, shortly after classes started, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said.
PHOTO: AFP
He climbed to the third floor, where he lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it into an 11th grade classroom, apparently striking a girl in the head and burning several other people, authorities said.
He then attacked some nearby girls with the ax, inflicting serious skull wounds on one of them, said Udo Dreher, the top police officer at the scene.
Dreher said it was not clear if the attacker, who had no police record, purposely selected his victims.
The teen, who was in his final year at the school, later lobbed another Molotov cocktail into a ninth-grade classroom directly across the hall, but it failed to ignite, Dreher said.
A student who smelled smoke called police, pulled the fire alarm and doused the flames, officials said.
Police searching the building were confronted by the teenager.
“The attacker was armed with an ax, several knives and another Molotov cocktail,” Dreher said. “As he moved toward the officers, they opened fire and then arrested him.”
The attacker was shot five times in the upper body during his arrest, which authorities said came 11 minutes after police were alerted. He remains in critical condition, officials said, though Dreher said his life was not in danger. Police did not identify him.
One teacher and six pupils suffered burns, police said, but none of their injuries was serious.
About 700 other pupils were able to evacuate the building, taking shelter in a nearby unemployment office where they were being treated by psychologists and counselors, officials said.
Jakob Breitzke, a 10th-grader, told n-tv private television that students in his class heard screaming coming from the third floor and locked and barricaded their classroom door. He said someone rattled the door before moving on.
“Then we ran out down the emergency stairs and over to the unemployment office,” Breitzke said.
He described the attacker as a loner but someone who “was not a typical killer [video] games player ... No one would have expected that he would go after people or plan an attack like this.”
School principal Frank Stark said the evacuation went smoothly after the fire alarm sounded, and many students thought it was only an exercise.
Prosecutors said they were investigating the teen on suspicion of attempted murder. Authorities said his motive was not immediately clear, and there was no indication that he had said anything during the attack.
Police spokeswoman Elke Schoenwald said a search of the 18-year-old’s room turned up documents that “suggest a planned act.” She did not elaborate, saying that they are currently being evaluated.
“As horrible as an incident such as this is, it has shown that the school and police were well prepared for such a situation,” Herrmann said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese