Swedish police are investigating whether an 18-year-old man who attacked students at a high school with a sword on Friday, killing one, was involved in online communities promoting school violence, a police source said.
Police are investigating whether a TikTok account that posted a picture of a sword 20 minutes before the assault belonged to the suspect, the source said.
The Dagens Nyheter reported that the image appeared to have been taken in a restroom at the school.
Photo: EPA
Before it was taken down on Friday, the month-old account contained videos that referred to two episodes of mass violence in Sweden and to Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. One of the videos referenced a 2015 attack in which a masked swordsman killed a teaching assistant and two boys at a school in Trollhattan, Sweden, before being shot dead by police.
“The investigators are looking into various online communities which might have egged on the suspect to carry out the attack,” the police source said.
Police revealed that a 17-year-old student was the fatal victim of the attack at Brinell School in Fagersta, where flowers and candles were left outside as Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson arrived on Saturday morning to honor the dead student and three wounded victims.
The 18-year-old attacker entered the school on Friday afternoon — just days after the school in the town of 13,000 people had returned from its summer break. He has since been detained by police.
“The person killed in this incident is a young 17-year-old female. Her family has been informed,” police wrote on their Web site without giving any other identity details.
“It’s terrible to think that someone you sat at the same table with, someone you talked to, is suddenly dead,” Minnea, a Brinell student who also went to honor the victims on Saturday, told Sveriges Television.
Several party leaders on Saturday canceled planned speeches, pausing campaigning ahead of the Sept. 13 election.
“What should never happen has happened again,” Kristersson told reporters in Fagersta.
“Our thoughts go first and foremost to the families who have been incredibly hard hit by this,” he said.
Sweden’s worst mass shooting occurred in February last year at a school in the south-central city of Orebro, when a shooter killed 10 people before turning the gun on himself.
On Saturday, the police clarified that the suspect in the Fagersta attack had not been shot, contrary to what they had said on Friday.
“Service weapons were used, but the perpetrator has not been injured in connection with the arrest, and has not been in need of medical attention,” a police spokesperson told the Aftonbladet daily.
Prosecutors ordered the man’s detention on suspicion of murder and several counts of attempted murder.
“The investigation is at an intense stage. We are conducting interrogations and gathering information, but I cannot go into specifics,” prosecutor Ann-Sofie Trossing said.
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