warsawAP —
A 21-year-old woman injured three people inside an educational facility in the capital Warsaw on Saturday in the third attack on a Polish school in less than a week, police said.
Warsaw police spokesman Jakub Filipiak told The Associated Press that the gunman used a “dangerous object” to attack a 17-year-old woman and ultimately seriously injured two others, aged 17 and 24. There were no life-threatening injuries.
Police did not identify the institution but said it was open on Saturday because it is a higher education institution. According to police, the perpetrator did not know the victims.
The attacks followed two school attacks earlier this week, and police said on Saturday they had detained 76 people across Poland and inspected nearly 50,000 schools across the country as part of efforts to prevent further violence.
Schools across Poland tightened security on Friday, with some schools canceling classes, many parents keeping children at home and police patrolling educational institutions after two school attacks earlier in the week left one person dead and several others injured, including children.
On Wednesday, a 19-year-old student at a vocational school in central Poland’s Masovian Voivodeship attacked other students, teachers and passersby with a sharp object, injuring nine people before fleeing and being arrested nearby. The next day, a 15-year-old boy used a knife to kill a school custodian and wound two others at his former school in the same state.
Both assaults were committed by Polish nationals and shocked the country, where school violence by minors is a new phenomenon.
By Thursday night, rumors were being shared in online parent groups and mainstream media that the attacks were coordinated and that more attacks would take place on the culminating day known as “Bloody Friday.”
On Friday, 59 schools preemptively canceled classes across Poland, mostly in the Masovian region, where the capital Warsaw is located. School principals sent out a message announcing increased safety measures, including extra school staff at entrances and voluntary backpack checks.
“There can be no compromises here. The safety of young people is paramount,” Interior Minister Marcin Kielwiński said.
Those detained on Friday included a 14-year-old boy from central Warsaw who was found with a concealed knife and 11 firecrackers, and a 16-year-old boy from another Warsaw area who came to school with a butterfly knife in his backpack. Some posted photos of knives online, threatened their peers and threatened to attack schools.
The government said it has so far found no evidence that there is an ongoing online challenge prompting attacks on schools. There is also no official confirmation that the two attacks were related. Both perpetrators are in custody.
Parents across Poland now urgently need to know how to talk to their children about school violence. Officials say additional safety measures will continue at schools and crisis management training will be organized. The Liberal government also promised to renew efforts to pass legislation to block harmful online content.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said: “If that juvenile attacker were streaming his crimes online today, we would not have been able to block that content because we would not have had the legal recourse to do so.”
After injuring three adults in Thursday’s attack, the 15-year-old boy, who was wearing a camera to record his actions, was eventually subdued by the school’s principal, Krzysztof Ocimanski. Ochmansky later told reporters there was a moment when the boy seemed to realize the gravity of his actions and said he didn’t want to do it anymore.
“Once I established contact, he asked me for help,” Ochmanski said. “He made me want to give him a hug.”
