A 13-year-old boy shoots 9 people dead, including 8 students, at his Belgrade school

Kosta K., seventh grader (13 years) from Vladislav Ribnikar College in Belgrade, has killed with a firearm at least nine people: eight studentsand the security guard from the center where he studied. In addition, there are seven wounded, among them a serious girl and teacher. The shooting occurred this Wednesday around 08:40. the morning. Shortly thereafter, the shooter called the police to arrest him in the school yard.

Serbian police have reported that the young man had drawn up a list of victims whom he planned to kill and who he had been planning the murders for a month. Although the motives for the shooting are still being studied, it was a “exemplary and pleasant student” and son of an important radiologist of the capital, according to the local newspaper Novosti.

“I saw children running out of the school, screaming. The parents came, they were terrified. Then I heard three shots,” a girl who attends an institute near Vladislav Ribnikar told state television RTS. Agents wearing helmets and bulletproof vests have already cordoned off the surroundings of the central Vracar district where the school was located

According to Novostithe alleged murderer he had participated yesterday in the birthday party of a class friend. Other colleagues who were also at the party say that the author behaved in an absolutely normal way during the event, without suspecting anything of what would happen the next day.

However, the police have found Kosta K.’s backpack at the school and contained three Molotov cocktails. The backpack was in the History classroom but the alleged shooter did not reach it.

[Biden anuncia una orden para impedir el acceso a las armas a personas potencialmente peligrosas]

“Based on the data collected so far, the young man has been planning the event for a long time. He took the guns from his father’s apartmentalso took Molotov cocktails,” Veselin Milić, Belgrade’s police chief, told a news conference.

Kosta K. came to school this morning with two gunsone of which was a CZ 99, and five chargers. After killing the security guard, he went to one of the corridors and opened fire indiscriminately. The eight corpses of the children were in the corridor.

“First he shot the security guard, then the teacher on duty. After the crime, he called the police. He drew up a plan to get in and out of the school. He determined the priority objectives, how to liquidate, which children and in what number“Milic said.

recognized college

Vladislav Ribnikar is an important center of what in Serbia is called Primary Education, located in the center of Belgrade. There, for example, the children of the singer study Ana Stanicfrom the television presenter Zorana Kesic or the national basketball star Duško Savanovicneither of whom were injured.

In that school they also study sons of Tomislav Momirović, Minister of Internal and Foreign Trade, but his class is nowhere near the scene of the shooting. They were evacuated with the rest of their companions after the shots were fired.

Milan Milosevic, the father of one of the students, said his daughter was in the classroom down the hall where the shooting took place. “He managed to escape. The boy first he shot at the teacher and then he started shooting randomly,” Milosevic told N1 broadcaster.

“I saw the security guard lying under the table. I saw two girls with their shirts stained with blood. They say that he (the shooter) was quiet and a good student. I hadn’t been in his class for a long time.“Milosevic added.

Like his daughter, other students managed to escape jumping out the windows or pretending to be dead. “I lay next to my dead friend and pretended. That’s how I saved myself,” says a student. Some of the injured, including a teacher, have been taken to the hospital in Serious condition.

Sinisa Ducic, acting director of a pediatric clinic in Belgrade that treats three of the victims, said that a girl had a “very serious injury” to her head and was having surgery.

Two other children have also undergone surgery and one of them is already stable. The Blood Transfusion Institute asked all voluntary donors in the country to be from the negative zero type that they urgently go to donate to carry out the operation of the children.

Weapons in Serbia

Mass shootings are relatively rare in Serbia, which has very strict gun laws. “I’ve been in thousands of investigations, this is unheard of in Serbian society“, Veselin Milic has told the press.

However, the Western Balkans are inundated with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons after wars and the riots of the 1990s. The Serbian authorities have granted several amnesties to owners who turn in or register illegal weapons.

At the moment is it legal to own firearms in serbia as long as it is licensed and the corresponding laws are respected. To obtain a weapons license, you must have, at least, 18 years oldhave no criminal record and pass a background check.

How is recognized self defense as a reason for owning a gun, people at risk of imminent death may have facilities to obtain the license. Of course, people who own weapons must register them and renew their license periodically.

there are certain restrictions on the type of weapons that can be owned and the purpose for which they can be used, the amount of ammunition accumulated or the security of the places where the weapons are kept so that they cannot be accessed by unauthorized persons. Severe penalties apply for those who break the law.

For that reason, Kosta K.’s father has been arrested, as reported by Bratislav Gašić, Minister of Police. “Both weapons, the one in the backpack and the one used to commit this crime, were in the legal possession of the boy’s father.”

“ANDThey were locked in a safe, under a code, and where there are several weapons from 2016 and 2017, but apparently the boy had a code for those weapons. The boy and his father often went to the shooting range to practice,” added Gašić.

Despite all the restrictions, it is estimated that there are around three million firearms in the entire country, which has a population of just over seven million people. Only the United States exceeds this ratio of weapons per inhabitant.

Education Minister Marko Ružić announced that the Serbian government has made the decision to declare three days of mourningwhich will last from May 5 to 7. Classes were canceled in all Belgrade schools This afternoon and tomorrow morning they will begin with a minute’s silence.

Lower criminal age

The president of Serbia, the populist Aleksandar Vucic, has proposed limiting weapons licences, in one of the countries where there is more in circulationand lower the criminal age to twelve years, after a thirteen-year-old teenager fatally shot nine people today in a Belgrade school.

Vucic, who has great influence over the government, has proposed a two-year moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for the possession of weapons, subject to strict controls how the carriers keep their weapons at home and reinforce the control of the firing ranges.

In addition, he has requested to lower the age of criminal responsibility from fourteen to twelve years.
In a televised speech, he also called for that drug use tests be carried out in secondary schools and explore the possibility of blocking web pages that give advice on how to carry out murder or purchase narcotics.