Warsaw, Oct 8. (dpa/GNA) – A school caretaker was killed and two others injured in a knife attack at a school in Poland on Thursday, Interior Minister Marcin KierwiÅ„ski said, the second such attack in the country in two days.
Police overpowered the suspect, a 15-year-old former pupil of the school in Leszczydół-Nowiny, around 70 kilometres north-east of Warsaw.
The teen entered the school in the morning and attacked the caretaker and a teacher, a spokeswoman for the local police told the online news platform Onet.
The school’s headteacher heard the noise and came out of his office to tackle the attacker, the spokeswoman said. He was also injured.
Rescue workers attempted to resuscitate the 37-year-old caretaker at the scene, but she died of her injuries.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, said the attacker had been wearing a helmet with a camera attached to it. “It was his intention to film the knife attack,” he said.
Police said cybercrime investigators were examining whether a social media challenge, encouraging young people to carry out such attacks was circulating online.
The incident was the second school attack to hit Poland in two days.
On Wednesday, nine people were injured, two of them seriously, in a knife attack at a vocational school in Ostrołęka, around 100 kilometres north of Warsaw. The alleged perpetrator, a 19-year-old man, was detained.
The police also announced that in a separate incident, a 17-year-old pupil was detained on Wednesday in Sierpc, around 130 kilometres north-west of Warsaw.
A teacher had alerted the police after other pupils told him that the teenager had announced he wanted to “do something bad at school.”
Officers seized two knives from the 17-year-old; furthermore, an analysis of his mobile phone revealed that he had been searching for information on how to plan an attack.
GNA