Pupil dies in Finland school shooting

Helsinki — A child was killed and two wounded in a shooting at a school outside the Finnish capital on Tuesday, police said, with a 12-year-old fellow pupil suspected of the attack taken into custody.

In the aftermath of the shooting, police cordoned off a building at the Viertola school in the Vantaa suburb of Helsinki. The arrest was made without further violence in the nearby suburb of Siltamaki. Both the suspect and the weapon were now in police custody, police said.

There were no other suspects, police said. They provided no details of the identity of the shooting suspect or victims, apart from saying they were all 12-year-old Finns and pupils at the school.

The two survivors were being treated for serious injuries, the Helsinki regional hospital district said without providing details.

The suspect had admitted the attack in a preliminary interview, police said, and the offences would be investigated as murder and attempted murder. No-one has yet spoken on the suspect’s behalf. The suspect would be put in the care of social services because a child could not be held in custody, police said.

Police said the motive was not clear. The handgun’s permit belonged to a relative of the suspect, they said. Unverified video circulating on social media showed two police officers kneeling at the side of the suspected shooter who was lying face down on a sidewalk.

The Viertola school has about 800 pupils from first to ninth grade and a staff of 90, according to the municipality. Anja Hietamies, the mother of an 11-year-old pupil, said she received a message from her daughter after the shooting. 

“She said they were in a dark, locked classroom, not allowed to speak on the phone but could send messages,” Hietamies said.

Interior minister Mari Rantanen said on X: “The day started in a horrifying way ... I can only imagine the pain and worry that many families are experiencing at the moment. The suspected perpetrator has been caught.”

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the shooting was deeply shocking. “My thoughts are with the victims, their loved ones and the other students and staff,” he said on X.

Previous school shootings in Finland have put a focus on Finland’s gun policy. In 2007, Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot and killed six pupils, the school nurse, the principal and himself using a handgun at Jokela High School, near Helsinki. In 2008, Matti Saari, another pupil, opened fire at a vocational school in Kauhajoki, located in northwest Finland. He killed nine pupils and a staff member before turning the gun on himself.

Finland tightened its gun legislation in 2010, introducing an aptitude test for all firearms licence applicants. The minimum age for applicants was also changed to 20 from 18. There are more than 1.5-million licensed firearms and about 430,000 licence holders in the nation of 5.6-million people, where hunting and target shooting are popular.

Reuters