School shooting in Serbia leaves 8 children dead

A 13-year-old boy opened fire on his classmates at a school in the Serbian capital Belgrade Wednesday, killing at least eight children — one boy and seven girls — along with a security guard.

While Serbia has a high level of gun ownership, mass shootings like these are rare. Here’s what we know about Wednesday’s shooting:

• How it happened: After arriving early morning at the Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School, a well-known institution in Vračar, an upscale area of the Serbian capital, the teenage suspect “immediately pulled the pistol out of his bag” and shot the school’s security guard before he went on to take the lives of the eight schoolmates and injuring six others and a teacher, Belgrade's Police Chief Veselin Milić said.
• The suspect called police: “He left the classroom, went out into the schoolyard, releasing the magazine from the weapon, throwing it down the steps,” Milić said Wednesday, adding the suspect called the police himself and waited until he was arrested in the yard.
• About the suspect: The teenage suspect was a student at the school, authorities said.
• Possession of weapons: The suspect had two guns, Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said at a news conference: “The parent had several pieces of weapon and kept them locked up. The safe had a code. Obviously the kid had the code as soon as he managed to get hold of those two guns. And three frames full of 15 bullets each,” authorities said. Separately, the boy had a 9mm pistol as well as a small calibre pistol in a bag, as well as four Molotov cocktails, Milić added.
• What happens next: The suspect's father was arrested Wednesday, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade said. The mother was also arrested, according to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. The 13-year-old suspect will not be held criminally responsible as he has not reached the age of 14, the prosecutor's office said, adding that this aligns with Serbia’s Law on Juvenile Offenders and the Criminal Legal Protection of Minors. The suspect would be placed in a special psychiatric institution, the president said.

CNN’s Josh Pennington, Amy Croffey and Radina Gigova contributed reporting to this post.

A female student “with French nationality” was killed in the school shooting in Belgrade this morning, the French foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

The ministry is ready to provide assistance to the family of the girl, it added.

“Our thoughts go out to the families of the victims, to whom we offer our deepest condolences, as well as to the many injured, to whom we wish a speedy recovery,” the ministry said.
“France expresses its full solidarity with the Serbian people and authorities in the face of this tragedy,” the statement added.

Eight children — seven girls and one boy — were killed along with one security guard during the shooting.

The mother of the 13-year-old Belgrade shooting suspect has been arrested, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The suspect would be placed in a special psychiatric institution, Vucic added.

“You see that he do not know what he did or show remorse,” Vucic said.

During its on-site investigation, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade said in a statement Wednesday that it had ordered the presence of social workers while taking a statement and performing a medical examination on the suspect.

The 13-year-old's blood was taken for toxicological analysis to determine whether he was under the influence of alcohol, narcotics, or other psychoactive substances at the time of the shooting.

Earlier, the suspect's father was ordered to be detained for up to 48 hours on “suspicion of having committed the criminal offense of Serious Offenses against General Security,” the prosecutor’s office said.

The 13-year-old suspect in the Belgrade school shooting will not be held criminally responsible as he has not reached the age of 14, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade said in a statement on Wednesday.

This aligns with Serbia’s Law on Juvenile Offenders and the Criminal Legal Protection of Minors, the prosecutor’s office said.

The suspect's father was ordered to be detained for up to 48 hours on “suspicion of having committed the criminal offense of Serious Offenses against General Security,” the prosecutor’s office said.

The prosecutor's office ordered the presence of social workers while taking a statement and performing a medical examination on the suspect as part of the on-site investigation, the statement added.

The 13-year-old's blood was taken for toxicological analysis to determine whether he was under the influence of alcohol, narcotics, or other psychoactive substances at the time of the shooting, it said.

“All the circumstances of this case, how he got the gun, as well as the motives of this heinous crime are being investigated,” the statement said.

More on the suspect: Earlier, Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said that the suspect brought two guns from home and had previously visited a shooting range with his father.

“The parent had several pieces of weapon and kept them locked up. The safe had a code. Obviously the kid had the code as soon as he managed to get hold of those two guns. And three frames full of 15 bullets each.”

The suspect in the Serbian school shooting is 13 years old, a Belgrade police bureau press officer confirmed to CNN. Earlier, his age was first given as 14.

Serbia, a southern European country of nearly 7 million people, has more than 2,700,000 guns in private ownership — only 44% of which are officially registered, according to a 2018 analysis by the Small Arms Survey.

This means there are 39 guns for every 100 Serbians, the data project at the Geneva Graduate Institute found. It is the highest level of civilian gun ownership in Europe, and the fifth-highest in the world. More than 1.5 million guns that people in Serbia own are unregistered, data shows.

Other countries in Europe that also have a high per capita firearm ownership are Montenegro, Finland, Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Austria. Meanwhile, Europe’s gun ownership is still incomparable to the United States, which has the highest gun ownership rate in the world, with more guns than people (120 guns per 100 people). 

The teenage suspect in a deadly shooting at a prestigious school in the Serbian capital Belgrade had two guns in his possession, the Serbian interior minister said at a news conference.

Bratislav Gasic said, "The parent had several pieces of weapon and kept them locked up. The safe had a code. Obviously, the kid had the code as soon as he managed to get hold of those two guns. And three frames full of 15 bullets each.”

Separately, Belgrade's Police Chief Veselin Milić detailed the boy had a 9mm pistol as well as a small caliber pistol in a bag, as well as four Molotov cocktails.

Earlier, Gasic said the boy's father was also arrested.

This post has been updated with more details about the shooting.

 

The teenage suspect who opened fire at a school in Belgrade killed a security guard first, then went to a classroom where he shot some of his schoolmates, Belgrade's Police Chief Veselin Milić said at a news conference Wednesday.

"Upon arriving at school, he immediately pulled the pistol out of his bag and shot (...) the security guard. He then went to the on-duty staff member and sat down at his desk like he did nothing wrong. There was one girl at her desk, another at the piano. He took their lives," Milić said.

The chief added, "Then he went out into the corridor to the history classroom, put another clip in on the way. He went into the classroom and immediately shot the teacher and the students there from the door. Then he left the classroom, went out into the schoolyard, releasing the magazine from the weapon, throwing it down the steps, called the police, and after that we took him into custody."

This post has been updated with more details about the shooting.

The father of the teenage suspect in the Belgrade school shooting has been arrested, Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said.

Gasic also said the father had previously gone to a shooting range with his son. 

What we know about the shooting: The shooting left at least eight children dead, along with a security guard. A further six children and one teacher have been hospitalized, according to Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.

This post has been updated with more details about the shooting.