A gunman attacked a school Tuesday morning in the Russian city of Kazan, sending students running out of the building as smoke poured from its windows. At least nine people were killed in the assault — seven eighth-grade students, a teacher and another school worker — and 21 others were hospitalized, Russian officials said.
Footage released by Russian media outlets showed students dressed in black and white running out of the building.
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Dozens of ambulances lined up at the school’s entrance after the attack, and police fenced off access to the building.
Russian media said that while some students were able to escape, others were trapped inside during the ordeal. All students were eventually evacuated to nearby day-care centers and collected by their families.
Officials said the attacker had been arrested, and police opened a criminal investigation into the shooting.
Rustam Minnikhanov, governor of the Tatarstan republic where Kazan is the capital, said Tuesday that four boys and three girls, all eighth-graders, died in the shooting, as well as a teacher and another school worker.
Minnikhanov said a 19-year-old “terrorist” had been arrested. “A firearm is registered in his name. Other accomplices haven’t been established. An investigation is underway,” Minnikhanov said after visiting the school, adding that security had been restored to the campus.
Authorities said additional security measures were put into place in all schools in Kazan, 430 miles east of Moscow.
They also announced a day of mourning on Wednesday to honor the victims of the shooting, and said all lessons would be canceled in Kazan schools that day.
According to Tatarstan health officials, 21 people were hospitalized with wounds after the attack, including 18 children, six of them in “severely grave condition.”
While school shootings are relatively rare in Russia, there have been several violent attacks on schools in recent years, mostly carried out by students. In response to Tuesday’s attack, authorities in several Russian regions ordered sweeping security inspections at schools.
Russian media said the suspect was a former student at the school who reportedly called himself “a god” on his account on the messaging app Telegram and promised to “kill a large amount of biomass” on the morning of the shooting. The account was blocked by Telegram after the attack, the independent news outlet Meduza said.
Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said on Telegram that the man had received his gun license less than two weeks ago. Khinshtein also said the school didn’t have any security aside from a panic button.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and ordered the government to given them all necessary assistance. Russian officials promised to pay victims’ families 1 million rubles (about $13,500) each and give 200,000 to 400,000 rubles ($2,700 to $5,400) to the wounded.
Putin also ordered Victor Zolotov, head of Russia’s National Guard, to revise regulations on the types of weapons allowed for civilian use in light of the attack.
Russia’s Emergency Ministry sent a plane with doctors and medical equipment to Kazan, and two leading officials, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko and Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov, also headed to the region.
© ControlTV 2021.
