Three School Stabbings in Four Days Shake Poland: One Dead, 117 Detained as Tusk Blames Online Glorification of Violence
Three knife attacks at schools in Poland's central Mazovian province within four days this week left one person dead and many wounded, Reuters reported, prompting a nationwide security response and a crisis meeting led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The first incident took place on Wednesday at a vocational school near Ostrołęka, where a 19-year-old wounded 10 people, including himself, and was detained. On Thursday, a 15-year-old former pupil wearing a helmet-mounted camera killed a 37-year-old female caretaker and injured two others at a primary school in Leszczydół-Nowiny, northeast of Warsaw, around 9 a.m. Two teachers who intervened were injured, and Tusk publicly praised their heroism. On Saturday, a woman was arrested in Warsaw after injuring three people during an attack on a 17-year-old girl at an educational facility. Separately, a 17-year-old was detained in Sierpc on suspicion of planning an attack; police said two knives were found in his possession.
After an emergency meeting on Sunday with government and security officials, Tusk said the attacks were spontaneous acts driven by the online "glorification of violence" rather than any organized group, linking them to what authorities call "nihilistic violence." He said some of those detained were active in far-right circles, and that police had seen a rise in online searches for Nazi content and idolized mass killers. Police are investigating a possible link between the incidents and an internet challenge.
Tusk had earlier ordered police to visit schools daily. By Sunday morning, police had detained 117 people nationwide for carrying knives or other dangerous items or threatening attacks on schools, and about 64,000 schools had been checked. Kacper Rekawek, a senior research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague, described the attacks as a copycat phenomenon.
This report sticks to the facts; no details beyond what is needed to understand the events are included.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：华沙第206小学校舍与校园。摄影：Cybularny，CC0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
