|
 The student was disarmed and detained less than two hours after
the shooting following negotiations aided by his father, Interfax
news agency said. News agencies said he might have been seeking
revenge over a conflict with a teacher.
Any such violence could rattle nerves at a time when athletes and
spectators are arriving for the Sochi Games and the country is on
high alert over an Islamist militant threat of violence.
State-run media tend to portray school attacks as a largely U.S.
phenomenon and they are indeed rare in Russia.
However, separatist militants seized a school in the North Caucasus
town of Beslan in 2004. More than 330 people, mostly children, were
killed.
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said the student
may have suffered an "emotional breakdown" when he entered the
school in northern Moscow with two of his father's rifles and shot a
geography teacher several times.
"We were in the stairwell when we heard the man outside yelling to
the police officer to open the door, and then we heard shooting,"
said Ivan Fodokin, 17, a student at School No. 263.
STUDENTS FLEE
The midday shooting sent dozens of students scurrying into the
street in subzero temperatures while a police helicopter landed in a
snow-covered field outside and at least six ambulances rolled up to
the scene.
The alleged assailant cocked one of his two rifles when a guard
tried to stop him getting into the school and then went to a
classroom full of 10th graders, the federal Investigative Committee
said.
"On the way, the shooter wounded a teacher, who later died," it said
in a statement.
[to top of second column] |
It said the guard had managed to press an alarm button, bringing
police to the school.
"When the police entered, the shooter opened fire toward them,
wounding one and killing another."
The assailant had two rifles, both registered in his father's name,
and fired at least 11 shots, state-run news agency RIA cited Markin
as saying.
"The person who took 20 people and a teacher hostage is a student in
the upper classes at the same school. He has been neutralized and
all the students have been freed," Interior Ministry spokesman
Andrei Pilipchuk told state TV.
"One policeman was fatally wounded during the operation and died in
hospital, and a teacher at School No. 263 was also killed," he said.
Police did not immediately identify the attacker or his victims.
There have been a handful of shootings at workplaces and public
areas in Russia in recent years, but school shootings are virtually
unheard of.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Grove, Vladimir Soldatkin and Maria
Tsvetkova; writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by Elizabeth Piper
and Ralph Boulton)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
