The attack on a school in Chelyabinsk on September 16, 2024.

 

Another tragedy occurred last Monday at School No. 68 in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. On that day, a 13-year-old student brought two hammers, a pneumatic pistol and a knife to school, went to the restroom, changed his clothes, turned on a portable audio speaker and a video camera (broadcasting live on the Internet), then entered the classroom where he was studying and attacked his classmates. Three children and a teacher were injured, two injured girls are in serious condition.   

After the attack, the perpetrator left the classroom and attempted to commit suicide, but was not able to complete his plan and was detained alive by police officers who arrived at the scene.

I am not trying to assess the motives of the perpetrator, for two reasons:

1. I do not believe that there can be reasons that would justify committing or attempting mass murder;

2. I practice applied criminology, and my area of interest is only in the actual crime.

In every such crime, other questions are more relevant to me, the main ones being:

- Why was the perpetrator able to carry out his criminal intent?

- Why did the attention-grabbingly dressed teenager walk freely from home to school without attracting attention?

- Why did the juvenile dressed in eye-catching (directly signaling danger) clothing, which clearly does not comply with school rules, freely enter the school building, pass the security post, and move freely through it without attracting attention?

- Why did the juvenile freely, pass the security post and carry a weapon into the school?

- Why did the suspect move freely through the school building and was only apprehended by police officers who arrived?

- Why was the threat alert system not working (according to witnesses, other students and teachers learned of the incident only through the screams of victims and eyewitnesses)?

Since the beginning of 2024, in the world, this is already the 12th case of crime with the purpose of mass murder committed in an educational institution (these are only those cases that received publicity in the media, in fact, there are more such crimes, not all of them are included in statistical reports), before that, there were similar cases in China, Germany, USA, Mexico, Finland, Bosnia, Greece, Great Britain, in which 59 people suffered, 17 of them were killed, 42 were injured, most of the victims were children.

Every year dozens of such crimes are committed, hundreds of victims, but nothing changes. Each time the criminals use the same vulnerabilities in the school security system, they easily get inside the educational institutions and carry out their plans.

Can this bloody wave be stopped? I believe it can.

Are there effective ways to counter these threats? I believe there are.

Why has it not been done so far? I don't have an answer to that question.

Author - Roman Grishin

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