Grief and dismay in Offenburg, Baden: A 15-year-old is said to have shot a classmate of the same age at a school on Thursday. He died of his serious injuries. The suspect was taken into custody in a prison for suspected manslaughter, as police and public prosecutors announced in the evening.
The suspected young person, a German, is being examined forensically, the investigators said. The motive for the attack in the special needs school is likely to be personal.
According to dpa information, the attack is said to have taken place in the suspect’s 9th grade class. According to investigators, the suspect was held by a man who happened to be there until the police arrived.
The young man came into a classroom and fired at least one shot from a handgun at a classmate of the same age who was sitting. “As a result, he suffered the most serious injuries,” the statement said. The victim later died in a clinic.
The man’s intervention until the officers arrived was a fortunate circumstance – more could have happened, the dpa learned from sources. The alleged perpetrator had ammunition with him. The 9th grade usually teaches students between the ages of 15 and 16.
“The police quickly caught the suspected perpetrator and are urgently investigating the background to the crime,” explained Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) in Stuttgart. It is assumed that the perpetrator was an individual. The police currently have no indication of a political background to the crime.
According to the police, the school was cordoned off over a large area; it is located in the northern part of the municipality in the Ortenau district. The officials spoke of a major operation; over 300 police officers were there. According to police circles, a special operations team (SEK) was also deployed. Support also came from other precincts and police headquarters in the region. A police spokesman said there was no explicit mention of an attack.
Residents reported helicopters circling over the area for hours. Sirens from emergency vehicles wailed and there was a roadblock on an important traffic artery. Offenburg, with around 62,000 inhabitants, is an important transport and economic center in the region, but life is otherwise rather tranquil.
Around 180 students initially had to stay in the classrooms, but were then able to leave them later. The young people were initially looked after by specialist staff, but were then able to return to their parents, as the police reported.
According to its own information, the Waldbachschule is a special education and advisory center with a focus on learning. Pupils are taught in 15 classes. According to the city of Offenburg, the school will remain closed on Friday.
The school building was still cordoned off hours after the crime. The forensics department was still on site, it was said. Individual students are also still in school. There was an exceptionally busy area around the school area, where the Waldbachschule is located: parents were picking up their children, young people were there and looking at their cell phones. Police officers ensured that only authorized people were allowed near the school.
A grandfather who was picking up his two granddaughters from a nearby school was visibly shaken. “Luckily nothing happened to them,” he says with tears in his eyes. A mother whose child attends a kindergarten directly opposite the Waldbachschule said that the little ones had not noticed anything about the incident. She was asked to pick up her child via the daycare app.
There was a contact point for students and parents in the north-west hall at the north end of the school area. There was a huge crowd there. Many ambulances were nearby.
Just on Wednesday, two boys in a school in Hamburg threatened a teacher with some kind of firearm, triggering a large-scale police operation. It was only after four hours that the emergency services were able to give the all-clear. Almost at the same time there was also an alarm at another school about a threat situation. Here too, an educational force was threatened. In this context, a short time later, four boys aged 11, 12, 12 and 14 and later a 13-year-old were arrested and a total of three suspected toy weapons were seized. A 12-year-old and a 13-year-old are suspected of being responsible for the threat in Blankenese.
Note: This article has been updated several times.
