After Brokstedt’s knife attack, Schleswig-Holstein’s Education Minister Karin Prien expressed her sympathy at the school of the two victims. “I came here today primarily to express that we are mourning together with the students, the teachers, the social workers, the school psychologists. The whole country is mourning,” said the CDU politician in the morning afterwards to the talks in Neumünster.
She was able to convince herself that there was a very good crisis intervention team at the school. According to Prien, the entire school community, the entire staff, is working on the crime together with the class in which the killed student went and the class of the boy who was killed. “But of course the other students are also affected by the fact that such a crime could have happened on a railway line that they use every day.” There is a lot to do, said Prien. “But I saw a school community here today that stands together and tries to cope with such an incredible event.”
Suspect overpowered by other passengers
The railway and transport union North mourned the 19-year-old in a post on their Facebook page after the train attack in Brokstedt on Thursday evening. He worked as a trainee in DB vehicle maintenance in Neumünster, the branch manager told the German Press Agency on Friday.
The 17-year-old and the 19-year-old, who were killed in the attack on a train from Kiel to Hamburg, knew each other and both attended the trade school in the city of Neumünster.
In the knife attack on Wednesday, five other travelers were injured, some seriously. The attacker was arrested by the police at Brokstedt train station after other passengers overpowered him. The 33-year-old suspect was released just a few days ago by order of the Hamburg Regional Court from Billwerder Prison, where he was in custody for a violent crime.
