BELGRADE (AP) – A 13-year-old boy who opened fire at a school in the Serbian capital Belgrade on Wednesday drew a sketch of the classroom and made a list of people he intended to target in a carefully planned attack police said. He killed eight fellow students and a security guard before calling the police and being arrested.
Serbia is riddled with the remnants of war in the 1990s, but mass shootings in the Balkan region are extremely rare. There have been no reported school shootings in Serbia in recent years.
According to Senior Police Officer Veselin Milic, the attackers first killed a school security guard and then three students in a hallway. He then entered a history classroom near the entrance to the school and opened fire again, Myrick said.
After the attack on a school in central Belgrade ended, the attackers themselves called the police, although authorities had received a call reporting the shooting two minutes earlier.
A student’s father said gunmen broke into his daughter’s classroom and shot a teacher and classmates who were hiding under desks, with most of the school’s students escaping through the back door, according to local officials.
Milich said the shooter spent a month planning the attack, sketching classrooms and making lists of children he wanted to “kill.” It was unclear whether he shot anyone on the list.
The rarity of such attacks added to the shock many felt.TV commentators and officials said this was the kind of thing they expected to read elsewhere, especially in the United States. Most recently, in 2013, Balkan war veterans killed 13 people, including family members and neighbors, in a mass shooting in a village in central Serbia.
Authorities have declared three days of national mourning for him starting Friday. Police identified the shooter as Kosta Kecmanovic, who attended the Vladislav Ribnikar School, which typically had students between the ages of 6 and 15.
He cannot be prosecuted because he is under 14, the Belgrade public prosecutor’s office said. Social services decide what happens to him.
Officials said he was carrying two firearms that belonged to his father, at least one of which was a pistol, and four Molotov cocktails. Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said the gun was licensed and kept in a safe, but his teenage boy at the range apparently knew the code. The father was also arrested but has not yet been charged.
It’s not clear how many shots were fired, but police said the shooter reloaded his pistol.
Nine people died, six children and a teacher were hospitalized.
Footage in local media shows police taking Mr. Kecmanovic off with his head covered as they drive him to a car. The police have cordoned off the block around the school. Authorities then took the body bags to a waiting van.
Police said they received a call about the shooting around 8 a.m.
It was 40 a.m. on the first day when classes resumed after the long weekend of May 1st.
“I heard gunshots. It was non-stop,” said a student who was in gym class, who said the shooting occurred in another part of the building. I asked him not to let me out. “I didn’t know what was going on. I got some messages on the phone.”
A student described the shooter as a “quiet guy” who got good grades.
“He wasn’t open with anyone. I certainly didn’t expect that,” she said.
