Latest news with #RobertoEidForest
ARN News Center
06-02-2025
- ARN News Center
Sweden's deadliest attack leaves 11 dead at Orebro adult school
Eleven people were killed in a shooting at an adult education centre on Tuesday, Swedish police said, marking the country's deadliest gun attack in what the prime minister called a 'painful day'. The gunman is believed to be among those killed and a search is continuing at the school for other possible victims, the local police chief told a press conference. The perpetrator's motive was not immediately known. "We know that 10 or so people have been killed here today. The reason that we can't be more exact currently is that the extent of the incident is so large," local police chief Roberto Eid Forest told reporters. Forest said police believed the gunman had acted alone and that they did not currently suspect terrorism as a motive, though he cautioned that much remained unknown. He said the suspected gunman had not previously been known to police. "We have a big crime scene, we have to complete the searches we are conducting in the school. There are a number of investigative steps we are taking: a profile of the perpetrator, witness interviews... Obviously, it's a significant amount of work." he said. Police said they had opened an investigation into murder, arson and an aggravated weapons offence and that the search for possible further victims had continued into the evening. The shooting took place in Orebro, some 200 km west of Stockholm, at the Risbergska school for adults who did not complete their formal education or failed to get the grades to continue to higher education. It is located on a campus that also houses schools for children. "It is a very painful day for the whole of Sweden," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on X. "My thoughts are (also) with all of those whose normal school day was turned into fear. Being locked up in a classroom fearing for your life is a nightmare no one should have to experience." Maria Pegado, 54, a teacher at the school, said someone threw open the door to her classroom just after lunch break and shouted to everyone to get out. "I took all my 15 students out into the hallway and we started running," she told Reuters by phone. "Then I heard two shots but we made it out. We were close to the school entrance." "I saw people dragging injured out, first one, then another. I realised it was very serious," she said. No police officers were injured in the shooting, police said. Ambulances, rescue services and police were at the scene, a spokesperson for local rescue services said. Police said students were held indoors at the school that was targeted and at other schools nearby. Sweden's Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer told Reuters the government was in close contact with the police and was following developments closely. "The information about the violent attack in Orebro is extremely serious," he said. Sweden has been struggling with a wave of shootings and bombings caused by an endemic gang crime problem, though fatal attacks at schools are still rare. Ten people were killed in seven incidents of deadly violence at schools between 2010 and 2022 according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. In one of the highest profile such crimes in the past decade, a 21-year old masked assailant driven by racist motives killed a teaching assistant and a boy while wounding two others in 2015.
Al Jazeera
05-02-2025
- Al Jazeera
Sweden school shooting: What we know about the victims and attacker
EXPLAINER Swedish police warn that the death toll from the shooting at Risbergska School in Orebro city may rise. 01:53 By Published On 5 Feb 2025 A shooting on Tuesday at an adult education campus in central Sweden killed at least 11 people, including the attacker, the police said on Wednesday. Here is what we know so far: What happened and when? A shooting took place in an adult school in the city of Orebro at 12:33pm local time (11:33 GMT) on Tuesday and the police initially reported that five people were killed. Shots were fired in quick succession, witnesses say and videos show. Teachers inside the school said that when they heard the gunshots, they fled classrooms or barricaded themselves inside. Maria Pegado, 54, a teacher at the school, told Reuters: 'I took all my 15 students out into the hallway and we started running. Then I heard two shots but we made it out. We were close to the school entrance. I saw people dragging injured out, first one, then another. I realised it was very serious.' Where was the shooting? The shooting took place at Campus Risbergska in Orebro city, 200km (124 miles) west of the Swedish capital Stockholm. What is Risbergska School for adults? The school is for people over 20 years of age who were unable to complete their formal education or who did not receive the grades they needed for higher education. Schools such as Risbergska are known as 'Komvux' in Swedish. The school caters for about 2,000 students and also offers vocational training and Swedish language classes. What do we know about the attacker? Swedish police say the suspected attacker – a man – was dead when they found him. Orebro police chief Roberto Eid Forest told a news conference on Wednesday that 'there is a lot to indicate that' the suspect had turned the gun on himself. The police said the motive for the shooting is as yet unclear and under investigation, but they believe he was acting alone. The attacker was unknown to police before the shooting, and the police said they did not find links between him and any gangs or groups. It is unclear if this means that any link to terrorism has been ruled out. Swedish public service television company Sveriges Television (SVT) said, without citing sources, that the man lived in Orebro and had a hunting licence. The broadcaster added that he was using a hunting weapon. Swedish daily tabloid Aftonbladet reported that the man was 35 years old. The outlet reported that relatives said he was a recluse who had withdrawn from family and friends. What do we know about the victims? Authorities confirmed on Wednesday that 11 people, including the attacker, were killed. Authorities have not confirmed the number of people injured yet, and the police have warned that the death toll could rise, according to SVT. The police told the Wednesday news conference that six people had been taken to the local university hospital, five of whom had gunshot wounds. Two people remain in intensive care. 'We do not have a complete picture at this time regarding the number of injured,' police spokesperson Fredrik Svedemyr was quoted by Anadolu news agency as saying. 'Since we also do not have any information about the injury situation for those being treated in hospital, there is unfortunately a risk that the number will not stop at 11,' said Svedemyr. What are the reactions? Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf said in a statement on Tuesday that he had received the news of the shooting with 'sadness and dismay'. All flags of government buildings and royal palaces were flying at half-staff on Wednesday. This was announced in media releases from the government, royal family and parliament speaker. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X on Tuesday: 'It is a very painful day for all of Sweden. Being locked in a classroom, fearing for your life, is a nightmare that no one should have to experience.' European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in an X post: 'Such violence and terror have no place in our societies – least of all in schools. In this dark hour, we stand with the people of Sweden.' 16-year-old Linn, a pupil who attends school near the site of the shooting told AFP: 'I was standing there, watching what was happening, and I was just around here when I saw some bodies lying on the ground. I don't know if they were dead or injured.' Liv Demir, 36, whose son attends a school nearby, and also takes gym classes at Campus Risbergska, told AFP: 'I became numb, speechless. I didn't really know where to go.' How rare are shootings in Sweden? Shootings in Sweden used to be rare. PM Kristersson told reporters that the attack was 'the worst mass shooting in Swedish history'. However, Sweden has seen a rise in shootings and bombings associated with gang violence. There were 296 shootings in Sweden in 2024, which resulted in the deaths of 44 people and injuries to 66 people, police data shows. The record for the highest number of shootings was in 2022 when 391 shootings took place across Sweden. Some 62 people died and 107 were injured during that year. There have also been some recent incidents of violence at schools in Sweden. In March 2022, a student, 18, stabbed and killed two teachers in Sweden's city of Malmo. In October 2015, a man stabbed a teacher and student to death in a school with a high number of immigrants in the industrial city of Trollhattan. The man, identified by Swedish media as 21-year-old Anton Lundin Pettersson, was reported to have far-right sympathies and was shot dead by police.
Local Sweden
05-02-2025
- Local Sweden
What do we know about the Örebro gunman?
Shortly after noon on Tuesday, a man entered the Campus Risbergska school for adult education in Örebro, a city in central Sweden. He shot and killed 11 people, including himself. But what do we know about the suspected gunman so far? The answer for now is: not much. Police have not confirmed any details about the identity of the suspect, but on Tuesday afternoon they raided an apartment in Örebro where the gunman is said to have lived. According to Swedish media, he's a 35-year-old man who had a hunting licence. In a press conference on Wednesday morning, Örebro police chief Roberto Eid Forest would not confirm or deny that the perpetrator had a weapons license or the type of weapon ‒ or weapons ‒ used in the attack. He did confirm however that police heard shots when they arrived but the perpetrator was dead when police arrived at the scene. "We cannot confirm [that he shot himself], although there is a lot of evidence suggesting that this is the case," he said. He confirmed in a later interview with SVT that police had not fired any shots. The perpetrator was unknown to police and had no previous convictions, nor any known links to gang crime. For now, police do not believe he had a terror motive, and so far nothing has emerged about any other kind of ideological motive – but it is important to note that the investigation is still at a very early stage, so details about a possible motive could emerge later on. Police warn that incorrect information is being spread about the shooting and motives behind it on social media, and have urged the public to not spread rumours and to only trust official information from the police. It is believed that he acted on his own, but police have not ruled out that there may have been more people involved. In interviews with the Aftonbladet tabloid, relatives described the man as an enstöring, a "loner", who didn't have much contact with friends and family, although they said he would sometimes join Christmas celebrations with his parents and siblings or look after his parents' dog. "He doesn't seem to like people," one relative told Aftonbladet. For unknown reasons he changed his name a few years ago, and according to public broadcaster SVT he didn't have any taxable income in 2023.
The Guardian
05-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Örebro school shooting was one-man operation, police say
The gun attack that left 11 people dead in the Swedish city of Örebro was 'a one-man operation', police have said, as they worked to identify the victims of the country's deadliest mass shooting. The suspected gunman was among the dead and six people were hospitalised after a shooter entered Campus Risbergska, a school specialising in adult education, just after 12.30pm on Tuesday. The Örebro police chief, Roberto Eid Forest, said at a press conference on Wednesday morning that police had not finished identifying the victims. He said there was strong evidence to suggest that the gunman shot himself. 'We still believe that it is a one-man operation. We will return to the exact motives,' he said. Police have said there is nothing to suggest the gunman acted on ideological grounds and that the suspect, who has not been named, had no known connection to criminal gangs. The prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said 4 February would 'for ever mark a dark day in Swedish history' as he urged the country to come together. He invited party leaders to a meeting with the justice minister and the police authority, and said the meeting would begin with a minute's silence. 'Today, people have woken up to unimaginable sadness and pain. For those who have lost a loved one, life will never be the same again,' he said. 'We are a country in mourning and we must all come together – as a nation, as fellow human beings and as leaders of the parties in the Riksdag. Together, we must help the injured and their families to bear the grief and weight of this day.' Eid Forest said the reason it took so long to inform the public about the death toll was the size of the school premises. 'It took a very long time to search and ensure that we didn't have any more injuries,' he said. Jonas Claesson, the director of health and medical services for the Örebro region, said five of the six people admitted to hospital had initially life-threatening gunshot wounds and were now stable after undergoing surgery. Two of them were being treated in intensive care. A sixth person had minor injuries. The injured were four women and two men. Police urged anybody who was at the school on Tuesday or had footage of the incident to come forward. They asked the public to share only confirmed information. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion A meeting was held in central Örebro for relatives, where Eid Forest said they would be informed about 'the continued work on, among other things, identification and how it will be done'. Kristersson, his justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, and King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia were due to visit Örebro later on Wednesday. Johanna Sollerman, who works in crime strategy in the municipality and is a crisis manager, said: 'We're going to live with this as a mark for a very long time. However, what we are starting to see is civil society together with the municipality and police really rallying around for citizens of Örebro.' She said they were in the process of setting up centres around the city where victims' families and members of the community could speak to social workers, members of the Red Cross and representatives of churches and mosques. They were also in the process of making decisions about memorial places and a silence of remembrance. She said Campus Risbergska mostly ran education courses for adults, including for those learning Swedish, training in professions such as nursing, and studying to go to university. 'The school is a society of different backgrounds,' she said. Schools in the municipality had been training and practising for how to stop such an incident, she said, because it was known to be a potential risk. 'For a few years now we've been training on how schools should act to stop a lone actor. We've been training in that because we know it can happen.' The municipality had taken a proactive approach to mapping criminals and gangs, she said, but 'this kind of situation is very difficult for us to detect'. She added: 'We've been teaching it, practising it, but to actually go through it is unimaginable. We wouldn't believe in a million years that Örebro would be the scene for this tragedy.'
The Independent
05-02-2025
- The Independent
Who was the Sweden school shooting suspect who killed 10 people?
The gunman was among the 11 people killed in the worst shooting in the history of Sweden at an adult education centre west of Stockholm. On Tuesday, police received reports of a shooting in Orebro, a city 200km (124 miles) west of Stockholm, at 12.33pm local time and engaged in an exchange of bullets with the suspect. Terrified students scrambled for cover under the desk and some even barricaded themselves in classrooms. The suspected perpetrator was later found with a gunshot wound, police said. Five people were in 'serious' condition in hospitals following the Risbergska School shooting, Orebro officials said on Wednesday morning. Three women and two men, all over 18 years old, were operated on after being admitted with gunshot wounds. All are in stable but serious condition in the Orebro University Hospital. By early Wednesday, details about the shooting and the suspect remained unclear as Sweden – where school shootings are extremely rare – grappled with the aftermath of the attack. The bloodshed was so severe that police initially struggled to determine the number of victims amid the carnage. Police said the suspect who has not been identified is believed to have shot himself, reported the Sweden Herald. Orebro's police chief Roberto Eid Forest said that the attacker acted alone and wasn't known to police before the shootout. He also had no connection to a gang, he said. "At the moment we are confident that no more attacks will occur. The schools that were occupied have been evacuated," police chief Forest said, according to public broadcaster SVT. "We're working with secret services but as far as I know, it's a person unknown to police," said Mr Forest, when he was asked if the shooter lived in Orebro. He added that police "can't say anything about the kind of weapon" that was used during the attack "other than it was a firearm". The daily tabloid Aftonbladet, citing relatives of the suspected shooter, described him as a recluse who had maintained little contact with his family for years. Swedish broadcaster SVT, citing unnamed sources, reported that the attacker held a hunting licence, like many in Sweden, and used a hunting weapon during the shooting. Following the attack, the police conducted a large-scale search operation at a residence in Orebro believed to be linked to the suspect. The search operation was extensive, with heavily armed officers deployed at the scene and drones used to inspect the apartment through its windows. The snipers, meanwhile, took positions on nearby rooftops and by 5pm local time initial phase of the operation had concluded, and cordons were lifted. However, officers at the scene declined to answer questions from local residents or specify how long the operation would continue. All government buildings and royal palaces in Sweden will fly flags at half-mast from 9am Wednesday to commemorate the shooting, said press secretary to the prime minister of Sweden Tom Samuelsson. On Wednesday, the Swedish police warned people against "erroneous narratives" that were being spread on social media regarding the mass shooting. "We want to be clear that based on investigative and intelligence information at present, there is no information pointing to the culprit acting on ideological motives," police said in a brief statement on its website.
