Swedish police are investigating whether the 18-year-old man who attacked high school students with a sword on Friday, killing one, was involved in online communities that promote violence in schools, a police source told Reuters, UNN writes.
Details
The attacker stormed a school in the central Swedish town of Fagersta, also seriously injuring two teenagers before being arrested by police. The parents of the 17-year-old girl told the local newspaper Fagersta-Posten that their daughter had died as a result of the attack.
In Sweden, a young man came to a school with a machete and killed a 17-year-old girl22.08.26, 17:30
Police are investigating whether a TikTok account that posted a photograph of a sword 20 minutes before the attack belonged to the suspect, a Reuters source said. According to the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the image was likely taken in a school toilet.
Before it was deleted on Friday, the month-old account contained videos mentioning two incidents of mass violence in Sweden and Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, the newspaper writes. One of the videos mentioned the 2015 attack in which a masked man killed a teaching assistant and two boys at a school in Trollhättan, western Sweden, before being shot dead by police.
"Investigators are looking into various online communities that may have incited the suspect to carry out the attack," a police source said.
Several party leaders canceled planned appearances on Saturday, suspending their campaign ahead of the September 13 election. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson traveled to Fagersta to offer condolences to the families of those killed and visit the injured.
"What should never have happened has happened again," Kristersson told reporters in Fagersta. "Our thoughts are first and foremost with the families who have been incredibly severely affected by this," he said.
Sweden's worst mass shooting took place in February 2025 at a school in the south-central city of Örebro, when an armed man killed 10 people before turning the weapon on himself.
On Saturday, police clarified that the suspect in the Fagersta attack had not been injured, contrary to what they had said on Friday.
"A service weapon was used, but the perpetrator was not injured in connection with the arrest and did not require medical attention," a police spokesperson told the daily newspaper Aftonbladet.
Prosecutors ordered the man's detention on suspicion of murder and several counts of attempted murder.
"The investigation is at an intensive stage. We are conducting interviews and gathering information, but I cannot go into details," prosecutor Ann-Sofie Trossing told Reuters.
Sword attack occurred at a school in Sweden; there are injured people21.08.26, 16:36