A school shooting in central Russia on Monday has left at least 17 people dead, including eleven children, and 23 people wounded. The gunman was wearing a swastika on his shirt.
The alleged gunman was identified as Artem Kazantsev, 34, a local resident and former student at the school in Izhevsk, a city of about 600,000. Kazantsev shot and killed himself following the shooting.
“Currently investigators … are conducting a search of his residence and studying the personality of the attacker, his views and surrounding milieu,” the committee said in a statement.
“Checks are being made into his adherence to neo-Fascist views and Nazi ideology,” it added.
Twenty children and three adults were reported wounded. Two school teachers and a school security guard were among the dead. Kazantsev reportedly shot the school security guard and then opened fire on students, who were as young as 7 years old.
Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that a boy in the seventh-grade jumped from a third-floor window to get away from the shooting and broke his leg.
There has been a rise in mass shootings in Russia since February 2020. Officials do not believe the shooting Monday was connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s recent military decisions.
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