Boy arrested after shooting at least eight pupils dead in Belgrade
A 14-year-old boy was arrested after a shooting at a school in Serbia, which killed at least eight students and a security guard in Belgrade.
Another six pupils and a teacher were wounded in the attack on Wednesday morning at the Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in the affluent Vracar area of the capital.
Local media reported that the teacher had now died of her injuries and said at least 10 children were wounded, but that was not confirmed by Serbian authorities.
The suspect was named only as Kosta K in the Serbian press, which alleged he arrived at the school with two pistols stolen from his father. Reports said he had a backpack filled with molotov cocktails and five magazines of ammunition.
“The police sent all available patrols immediately to the spot and arrested a suspected minor - a seventh-grade student who is suspected of firing several shots from his father’s gun in the direction of students and school security,” the Serbian authorities said.
“I saw kids running out from the school, screaming. Parents came, they were in panic. Later I heard three shots,” a girl who attends a high school adjacent to Vladislav Ribnikar told state TV RTS.
There was a commotion from anxious parents who had gathered outside the school when the suspect was taken to a car by police with a coat over his head.
The Informer tabloid said that the suspect was calm during the shootings and his arrest.
It reported he told his arresting officers, “I shot because I am a psychopath” in his sole words to the police.
He was known as a star pupil, who almost always got A’s and won prizes in biology and maths. One pupil said his peers would call him a nerd.
Several newspapers reported that the boy carried out the shooting after being given an “F”, a fail, in history.
One pupil in the class was reported to be fighting for his life after being shot in the head.
The school guard killed in the attack was named as Dragan Vlahović, who was born in 1972.
