12-year-old student opens fire at a school in Finland, killing 1 and wounding 2 others
Helsinki, Apr 2: A 12-year-old student opened fire at a secondary school in southern Finland on Tuesday morning, killing one and seriously wounded two other students, police said. The suspect was later arrested.
Heavily armed police cordoned off the lower secondary school, with some 800 students, in the city of Vantaa, just outside the capital, Helsinki, after receiving a call about a shooting incident at 09:08 a.m.
Police said both the suspect and the victims were 12 years old. The suspect was arrested in the Helsinki area later Tuesday with a handgun in his possession, police said.
Police told a news conference that one of the wounded students had died. The other two were seriously wounded, said Chief of Police Ilka Koskimaki from the Eastern Uusima Police Department.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo posted on X that he was “deeply shocked” over the shooting.
In the past decades, Finland has witnessed two major deadly school shootings.
In November 2007, a 18-year-old student armed with a semi-automatic pistol opened fire at the premises of the Jokela high school in Tuusula, southern Finland, killing nine people. He was found dead with self-inflicted wounds.
Less than a year later, in September 2008, a 22-year-old student shot and killed 10 people with a semi-automatic pistol at a vocational college in Kauhajoki, southwestern Finland, before fatally shooting himself.
In the Nordic nation of 5.6 million, there are more than 1.5 million licensed firearms and about 430,000 license holders, according to the Finnish Interior Ministry. Hunting and gun-ownership have long traditions in the sparsely-populated northern European country.
Responsibility for granting permits for ordinary firearms rests with local police departments.
Following the school shootings in 2007 and 2008, Finland tightened its gun laws by raising the minimum age for firearms ownership and giving police greater powers to make background checks on individuals applying for a gun license.
Ampumavälikohtaus Vantaalla järkyttää syvästi. Ajatukseni ovat uhrien, heidän läheistensä ja Viertolan koulun muiden oppilaiden ja henkilökunnan luona.
— Petteri Orpo (@PetteriOrpo) April 2, 2024
Seuraamme tilannetta tiiviisti ja odotamme viranomaisten päivittyviä tietoja.https://t.co/wJjwp8mcal
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
TN Assembly elections: Eight-month pregnant homemaker wins Thiru Vi Ka Nagar seat for TVK
Chennai (PTI): Before giving birth, she had already delivered a mandate—a symbol of hope for Thiru Vi Ka Nagar.
Echoing Delhi’s 2013 “common citizen” political churn associated with the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), an eight-month-pregnant homemaker, M R Pallavi, has been elected as an MLA from Chennai’s Thiru Vi Ka Nagar constituency, emerging as one of the notable first-time faces of the Vijay-led TVK in the recently held Tamil Nadu Assembly elections.
In the narrow lanes of Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, a steady stream of media personnel has been making their way to Pallavi’s residence—a scene reminiscent of the result day in Delhi when journalists thronged the modest home of Rakhi Birla, who had won from Mangolpuri on an AAP ticket.
Pallavi, 36, a homemaker educated up to class XII, defeated the DMK candidate K S Ravichandran by a margin of 22,333 votes in the reserved Thiru Vi Ka Nagar Assembly constituency.
Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam emerged as the single largest party by winning 108 seats, while DMK and AIADMK got 59 and 47, respectively.
Pallavi’s victory has drawn attention due to her personal circumstances. She campaigned extensively while eight months pregnant, going door-to-door to reach voters.
According to local accounts, she even fainted once during the campaign but continued her outreach.
She has not spoken to the media following her victory, as doctors have advised her to rest. Her husband, Rajesh, briefly recounted her campaign efforts.
A self-professed admirer of actor-turned-politician Vijay, Pallavi joined TVK soon after its formation and is now among its first-time legislators.
Doctors have advised her to be hospitalised around May 20, as she is expecting her second child. Ahead of that, voters in Thiru Vi Ka Nagar have entrusted her with representing them in the state Assembly.
Political observers say the rise of candidates like Pallavi signals a possible shift in Tamil Nadu’s political landscape, with voters backing a new party and candidates from non-traditional backgrounds.
