One of the two girls shot in her classroom by a 12-year-old student last week in Finland is still in critical condition, Finnish police said Monday.
The young gunman killed a boy and injured two girls his age on April 2 in a school in Vantaa, Finland’s fourth city, north of Helsinki.
The suspect told police last week that he shot his classmates because he was being harassed. His act was planned, according to the police. The two girls are still hospitalized.
“One of the victims remains in critical condition,” police said in their statement, adding that the condition of the other had improved enough that she could be interviewed over the weekend.
An investigation into murder and attempted murder was opened last week and the police indicated on Monday that “the course of events is generally well understood by the police”.
Harassment “is a very subjective and individual experience,” according to the police statement, which adds that it “continues to thoroughly investigate the reasons for this act.”
The young gunman shot his classmates in a classroom, according to the city of Vantaa.
A teacher in the class called a colleague who convinced the young shooter to leave the school, police told the Finnish news agency STT.
He was arrested “calmly” within an hour of the incident. He did not threaten other people with his weapon during his escape, police assure.
The weapon used belonged to a relative, investigators indicated last week, but not to a member of the family circle, said the police officer in charge of the investigation, Marko Särkkä. The shooter “took possession of the weapon without permission,” he adds.
The suspect cannot be held criminally responsible, because he is under the age of fifteen, and he is in the care of social services.
The boy had been attending school since the start of the year at the Viertola school, which welcomes 800 students aged seven to fifteen spread over two sites.