Student killed in sword attack at a Swedish school was a 17-year-old girl

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STOCKHOLM (AP) — The victim of a deadly sword attack at a school in central Sweden was a 17-year-old girl, police said Saturday.

An 18-year-old man armed with a sword carried out the attack at the Brinell School in Fagersta, northwest of Stockholm, while classes were in session on Friday. One person was killed and three others were wounded, two of them severely.

Police said the suspect had been arrested and that the case was being investigated as murder and attempted murder. The police said they have no reason to believe there were more perpetrators.

Vastmanland County, where the town is located, said that the two seriously injured boys were ages 12 and 17. A third person, also under 18, was slightly injured and has been discharged from a hospital, Swedish news agency TT reported.

The school principal told local media P4 Västmanland on Saturday that the attacker was a student at the school.

The police said they fired shots during its action on Friday but the attacker was not hit.

On Saturday morning, around 70 people gathered at the memorial site that the municipality prepared, carrying flowers and lighting candles, TT reported.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who visited the site on Saturday, expressed solidarity with the families affected by the attack and with those impacted by previous school attacks in Sweden.

“What must never happen has happened again,” Kristersson said.

Kristersson was joined in Fagersta by Magdalena Andersson, leader of the main opposition Social Democrats. With Sweden’s parliamentary election due in September, political parties suspended campaign events on Saturday. Kristersson also invited all party leaders to a meeting to discuss the progress of the investigation.

There was no official information on the attacker’s possible motive.

Sweden’s national police said that investigators have already carried out two house searches in connection with the suspect. Many witnesses were expected to be interviewed as part of the investigation.

The region went into a state of emergency on Friday, but it had ended by Saturday.

Sweden has seen a series of violent school attacks over the years.

Last year, 11 people, including the gunman, died after an attack at an education center in Örebro in central Sweden, leading the government to propose tougher gun laws. It's considered to be the worst mass shooting in the country's history.

In 2022, an 18-year-old man attacked two female teachers with a knife and an ax in a school in Malmo, killing them.

In 2015, a 21-year-old local man rampaged through a school in the southern industrial city of Trollhattan, stabbing three people to death before being fatally shot by police. Authorities called it a racist hate crime, saying he methodically selected dark-skinned victims at Trollhattan’s Kronan school, where most students are foreign-born.