MOSCOW – A student equipped with two rifles on Monday killed a teacher and a police officer and took 24 classmates hostage in one of the rooms of his Moscow high school before turning himself in to authorities.“We’re trying to clarify his motives. According to our information, (shooter) Sergei Gordeyev is an outstanding student and the most likely thing is that he suffered an emotional fit of rage,” the spokesman for the Russian Attorney General’s Office, Vladimir Markin, told the press.
He added that Gordeyev, a 10th-grader, fired at least 11 shots. Both guns belonged to his father and were properly registered.
Gordeyev came to his school shortly after midday and, after threatening the guard, entered the building and shot a geography teacher, who died soon thereafter.
Then, he entered a biology classroom, where he took 24 students and another teacher hostage and from there fired on police officers who had been sent to the school after the guard reported the incident, seriously wounding two officers, one of whom later died.
Moscow police chief Anatoli Yakunin said that Gordeyev’s father was persuaded to speak with his son by telephone.
After a 15-minute conversation by cell phone, the student’s father put on a bulletproof jacket and entered the school.
Inside the classroom where the boy had taken refuge, father and son spoke for a half hour and after that conversation Gordeyev released his hostages.
During the incident, police cordoned off the school, to which a dozen ambulances and a helicopter were sent.
The incident comes just three days ahead of the opening of the Winter Olympics in the southern Russian city of Sochi.
The games will take place amid heavy security amid concerns about possible terrorist attacks.
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