The Emergency Response Center Agency received an emergency call regarding the stabbing on Tuesday afternoon at 12:29 at the Savonia Vocational College in Herman Shopping Center in Kuopio, Northern Savonia.
Around the same time, the rescue department had received a fire call to the same address. The fire was extinguished but the building suffered damages.
The police caught the suspect, an adult native Finnish man, born in 1994, at 12:37. The police shot at the suspect, and he was seriously injured and is being treated in the Kuopio University Hospital in intensive care. The man was carrying a saber and a gun. The police said that the suspect has no previous criminal history.
The perpetrator is being suspected of murder and several other violent crimes and their attempts. The types of crimes will be determined later.
During the search of the suspect’s premises at Särkiniemi region, located about four kilometers from Kuopio center, the police found an item similar to a firebomb. The police have also taken the suspect’s computers in their possession.
One person was killed during the incident and ten have been hurt. One of the injured parties is a police officer who suffered mild injuries according to the preliminary examinations.
According to the regional newspaper Keskisuomalainen, the attacker’s primary target was a young woman who was studying at the vocational school. The woman was killed during the attack.
An eyewitness told the national news agency STT that the man had arrived in the class appearing normal and carrying a long bag. Someone asked him, “What’s in the bag?”
The man revealed the sword from the bag and started swinging people with it.
An eyewitness told Keskisuomalainen of having seen the man attacking a girl with a sword in the neck and in the stomach.
A woman who is studying at the school described the suspect to tabloid Iltalehti as a student familiar from her class, “a smart nerd” and “a simple soul.”
Source: The police, STT
