Student kills two in Moscow school in possible revenge attack

MOSCOW
(Reuters) – A
Moscow high-school student shot a teacher and a
police officer dead and held more than 20 other
students hostage in a classroom in a possible
revenge attack on Monday, days before Russia
hosts the Winter Olympics under tight security.
The student was disarmed and detained less than
two hours after the shooting following negotiations
aided by his father, Interfax news agency said.
News agencies said he might have been seeking
revenge over a conflict with a teacher.
Any such violence could rattle nerves at a time
when athletes and spectators are arriving for the
Sochi Games and the country is on high alert over
an Islamist militant threat of violence.
State-run media tend to portray school attacks as a
largely U.S. phenomenon and they are indeed rare
in Russia.
However, separatist militants seized a school in the
North Caucasus town of Beslan in 2004. More than
330 people, mostly children, were killed.
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir
Markin said the student may have suffered an
"emotional breakdown" when he entered the
school in northern Moscow with two of his father's
rifles and shot a geography teacher several times.
"We were in the stairwell when we heard the man
outside yelling to the police officer to open the
door, and then we heard shooting," said Ivan
Fodokin, 17, a student at School No. 263.
STUDENTS FLEE
The midday shooting sent dozens of students
scurrying into the street in subzero temperatures
while a police helicopter landed in a snow-covered
field outside and at least six ambulances rolled up
to the scene.
The alleged assailant cocked one of his two rifles
when a guard tried to stop him getting into the
school and then went to a classroom full of 10th
graders, the federal Investigative Committee said.
"On the way, the shooter wounded a teacher, who
later died," it said in a statement.
It said the guard had managed to press an alarm
button, bringing police to the school.
"When the police entered, the shooter opened fire
toward them, wounding one and killing another."
The assailant had two rifles, both registered in his
father's name, and fired at least 11 shots, state-run
news agency RIA cited Markin as saying.
"The person who took 20 people and a teacher
hostage is a student in the upper classes at the
same school. He has been neutralized and all the
students have been freed," Interior Ministry
spokesman Andrei Pilipchuk told state TV.
"One policeman was fatally wounded during the
operation and died in hospital, and a teacher at
School No. 263 was also killed," he said. Police did
not immediately identify the attacker or his
victims.
There have been a handful of shootings at
workplaces and public areas in Russia in recent
years, but school shootings are virtually unheard
of.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Grove, Vladimir
Soldatkin and Maria Tsvetkova,; Writing by Steve
Gutterman, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Ralph
Boulton)
Sent From David Aniemeka