The parents of the 13-year-old boy who opened fire at the school in Serbia have been arrested. The father, a well-known doctor in Serbia, is a gun collector and had taken his son to the shooting range at the age of 12 to teach him to shoot. The attacker’s father, as the owner of the weapon used to commit the massacre, was arrested and detained, and the mother spent the whole day yesterday in the police where she was questioned by order of the prosecutor’s office. The father is a well-known radiologist, and the mother is a scientist, professor of microbiology.
Serbs demand drastic measures to prevent the Belgrade school tragedy from happening again. In the armed attack, the guard was the first to be killed. The attacker, a 13-year-old student, continued to shoot. Eight children and the school guard died and six others and a teacher were injured.
Kostas Kecmanović, the 7th grade student who committed the attack had carefully planned his actions a month before. He even made a list of people he wanted to kill, which the police found on him. The boy had even sketched the school on a piece of paper, probably to better organize his attack.
Investigators found that, during the attack, the boy fired 57 shots, according to local media.
President Vucic announced the tightening of the conditions under which a firearm can be owned. Because the attacker is 13 years old, the president of Serbia also wants to change the limit of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 years. The Serbian leader announced unprecedented measures in Serbia – first of all, for two years, no more permits to carry weapons will be issued on the territory of Serbia, and all certificates issued up to this point will be carefully rechecked.
The president also stated that much more security is needed in schools so that parents can be sure that students are safe. Some parents’ associations also demand the installation of metal detectors at the entrance to schools. More policemen will, from now on, guard schools in Serbia.
Serbs pay their last respects to victims
Dozens of school pupils and teachers and parents came to pay their last respects to those who died in the attack. Since last night, the school in Belgrade where the massacre took place has turned into a place of pilgrimage – thousands of people were there last night with flowers, candles and stuffed toys. People posted messages for the victims of this bloody attack. There will be three days of national mourning – Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The school where the massacre took place will be closed for a week and classes will most likely resume next week. Incidentally, there were also protests in the capital of Serbia. People demanded the resignation of the Minister of Education.
The attacker’s 10-year-old sister was in the school at the moment of the attack
The younger sister of the Belgrade killer boy is 10 years old and a student at the same school. At the time of the massacre, she was in a classroom close to the one where her brother killed his classmates.
According to Serbian media, the 10-year-old girl was taken in by a family of close relatives and is receiving assistance from psychologists. “The younger sister of the killer boy is in a very serious condition, she won’t stop crying, she was at school when it happened and knows everything… She has been transferred to a family of close relatives, where she will remain for the time being. She benefited from the professional support of psychologists, pedagogues and doctors”, the social assistance service stated for the cited source.
The reason the boy gave for the attack, according to the police
The head of Belgrade’s police department, Veselin Milić, said that Kosta Kecmanović, the 13-year-old student who killed eight students, seven girls and one boy, and the school guard, did so because he felt left out of society.
“I could not find out the reason then (Wednesday morning, n.r.), because it is about a child. We could not have known that a child from our background could do such a disgusting and sick thing. What I found out was that it was being ignored. He was ignored and ostracized by society. This prompted him to do so,” Milić told public broadcaster RTS.
The police chief said that when the boy called the police, he told the operator that he was a “psychopath who needed to calm down”. The 13-year-old student had four Molotov cocktails and two pistols with him.