Trollhättan school attack
| Trollhättan school attack | |
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The masked perpetrator of the attack was photographed in the corridors of the school.
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 Trollhättan
Trollhättan (Västra Götaland)
Trollhättan
Trollhättan (Sweden)
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| Location | Kronan School, Trollhättan, Sweden |
| Coordinates | 58°16′9″N 12°18′20″E / 58.26917°N 12.30556°E |
| Date | 22 October 2015 |
| Target | Teachers and students |
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Attack type
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Murder, mass stabbing |
| Weapon | Sword |
| Deaths | 4 (including the perpetrator) |
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Non-fatal injuries
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1 |
| Perpetrator | Anton Lundin Pettersson |
| Motive | Racism |
On 22 October 2015, 21-year-old Anton Lundin Pettersson attacked Kronan School in Trollhättan, Sweden, with a sword. He killed a teaching assistant and a male student, stabbed another male student and a teacher, and died later of the gunshot wounds he received during his apprehension. The second teacher who was wounded died in hospital six weeks after the attack, on 3 December.
The attack was Sweden's first deadly attack on a school since the 1961 Kungälv school shooting when one person was killed and six injured. It is also the deadliest attack on a school in Swedish history. The initial police investigation concluded that Pettersson was motivated by racism and had chosen the school as his target due to its location in a neighbourhood with a high immigrant population.
According to Professor Ove Sernhede of the University of Gothenburg, Trollhättan has had a long history of hate crimes, starting with arson at a mosque in the 1990s. Research by his colleague Anders Sundell has found it to be the most ethnically segregated city in Sweden.
Surveys frequently show Sweden to be the European country which is most tolerant of immigration, although its population is polarised on the issue. Sundell's research showed that consistently over the last 20 years, a plurality of Swedes had wanted to limit the number of refugees coming to the country, but "There is a large difference between what the politicians think and the general public, and the media have not questioned the politicians until recently". This has led to those who oppose immigration to imagine that there is a conspiracy.
Pettersson entered the school in a German WW2 helmet and a mask similar to that of Star Wars villain Darth Vader, and said the character's line "I am your father" from The Empire Strikes Back. At first, eyewitnesses believed it was a Halloween prank.Dagens Nyheter published a photograph of the attacker shortly before his spree. In the picture, he posed with his sword alongside two students in a corridor.
After the photograph was taken, 20-year-old teaching assistant Lavin Eskandar ordered Pettersson to remove his mask, and pleaded for the students to run. Eskandar, a Feyli Kurd from Iraq, was stabbed and died at the scene. Pettersson then stabbed the abdomen of Ahmed Hassan, a 15-year-old born in Somalia. Hassan died in hospital; a recent Syrian migrant of the same age was attacked and also sent there. Pettersson was shot by police and died in hospital.
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Wikipedia