Investigating the identity and reasons behind the Sweden school shooting

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Eleven people were killed in a shooting at an adult education centre in central Sweden on Tuesday, Swedish police said, marking the country’s deadliest gun attack in what the prime minister called a “painful day”.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the attack at the Campus Risbergska in Örebro was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.

“It is hard to take in the full extent of what has happened today — the darkness that now lowers itself across Sweden tonight,” he told a news conference.

While many facts about the attack remain unknown, here’s what we know so far:

Who is the suspect and what were his motives?

The attacker responsible for the worst mass shooting in Swedish history was an unemployed man aged 35, who had a hunting licence and is believed to have acted alone, Swedish media reported.

Police said there was no evidence the suspect had “ideological motives”.

Local media reported the man had previously been enrolled at the school for several mathematics classes, without finishing them. The most recent class he was enrolled for was in 2021.

They said he was not known to them before the event and had never been convicted of any crime. They also said he had no gang connection.

Sweden’s minister of justice Gunnar Strömmer confirmed on Tuesday that the attacker was a man.

A policeman speaks into microphones at a press conference.

Roberto Eid Forest, head of the local police district, said they believed the gunman had acted alone and terrorism was not suspected as a motive. Source: EPA / Pontus Lundahl

The newspaper Aftonbladet, which spoke to relatives of the man believed to be the shooter, described him as a recluse who had limited contact with his family for years.

Swedish public broadcaster SVT, which did not cite its sources, said the attacker, like many in Sweden, had a hunting licence. He was using a hunting weapon during the shooting, it added. The attacker lived in Örebro, it said.

Police warned of misinformation spread on social media about the Nordic country’s deadliest gun attack.

Who are the victims and what do we know about the school?

Campus Risbergska serves students above the age of 20, according to its website. It offers primary and upper secondary school courses, as well as Swedish classes for immigrants, vocational training and programs for people with intellectual disabilities.

Many students in Sweden’s adult school system are immigrants seeking to improve their basic education and gain degrees to help them find jobs in the Nordic country while also learning Swedish.

Police did not disclose any information about the identity or ages of those killed, nor whether they were students or teachers at the school.

At least ten dead after Sweden's worst mass shooting image

Police said the gunman was believed to be among those killed, and a search for other possible victims was continuing at the school, located in the city of Örebro.

In the evening, the police website stated: “At this time, there are 11 deaths due to the incident. The number of injured is still unclear. We currently have no information on the condition of those who have been injured.”

How did the shooting unfold?

Police received the first reports of a school shooting at 12.33pm local time, but could not specify how it unfolded.

The attacker is believed to have carried some form of equipment to create smoke inside the school, police said.

Two Campus Risbergska teachers, Miriam Jarlevall and Patrik Soderman, told newspaper Dagens Nyheter they heard gunfire in a hallway.

“Students came and said someone was shooting. Then we heard more shooting in the hallway. We didn’t go out, we hid in our offices,” they said.

“There were a lot of gunshots at first and then it was quiet for a half-hour and then it started again. We were lying under our desks, cowering.”

Maria Pegado, 54, a teacher at the school, said someone threw open the door to her classroom just after the lunch break and shouted to everyone to get out.

“I took all my 15 students out into the hallway and we started running,” she told the Reuters news agency. “Then I heard two shots but we made it out. We were close to the school entrance.

I saw people dragging injured out, first one, then another. I realised it was very serious.

Maria Pegado, teacher

Linn, a 16-year-old student who goes to school near the site of the massacre, witnessed the aftermath of the shooting attack.

“There was blood everywhere, people were panicking and crying, parents were worried … it was chaos,” she told the AFP news agency.

“You would never think something like this would happen here in Sweden, especially in Örebro,” said Linn, who has several friends who attend a school next to Campus Risbergska, where the shooting happened.

Some witnesses told Swedish media they heard what they believed to be automatic gunfire.

Hellen Werme, 35, a nursing student at Campus Risbergska, said that after hearing shots she had hidden under a bed to evade the gunman.

“The teacher shouted for us to lock the door and get down on the floor,” the mother-of-two told Reuters. “I thought that this was my last time, my last day. That I’m getting shot today.”

Werme said she still had not been able to get in touch with five of her classmates who were in a different part of the school when the shooting occurred.

“I never want to go back there,” she said.

How has the community reacted?

Shocked locals gathered at a memorial on Wednesday to place flowers, light candles, and pray.

“Not in this place,” Malin Hilmberg told the Associated Press as she stood near a growing makeshift memorial near the scene.

“I mean, we heard about it in different parts of the world, but of course, it’s a shock. It’s your hometown and so many lives destroyed. It’s hard to find words.”

A man and woman embrace and outside. The woman, who is crying, is wearing a grey parka and black beanie and the man is wearing a black and red checked shirt and grey flat cap

Members of the community laid flowers and candles at a memorial site after the shooting in Obrero. Source: AAP / Sergei Grits/AP

Swedish royals King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, along with Kristersson, attended a memorial service for the victims of the mass shooting at St Nikolai Church in central Örebro on Wednesday.

Flags were flying at half-mast in Orebro, as well as at parliament and the royal palace in Stockholm.

“A grieving process is hard to do alone,” the king told reporters after laying white flowers at a memorial site with candles near the school. “I think all of Sweden feels it has experienced this traumatic event.”

“February 4 will forever mark a dark day in Swedish history,” Kristersson said in a statement.

“We are a country in mourning and we must all come together.

“Together, we must help the injured and their relatives bear the grief and weight of this day.”

Gun violence in Sweden

, resulting in the highest per capita gun violence rate in the European Union in recent years, despite its population of 10 million.

However, fatal attacks at schools are rare.

Ten people were killed in seven incidents of deadly violence at schools between 2010 and 2022, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.

Sweden gun ownership

Sweden has a high level of gun ownership by European standards, mainly linked to hunting, though it is much lower than in the United States. The ongoing gang crime wave, however, has underscored the prevalence of illegal firearms.

In one of the highest-profile crimes of the past decade, a 21-year-old masked assailant driven by racist motives killed a teaching assistant and a boy and wounded two others in Trollhättan, near Gothenburg, in 2015.

In 2017, a man driving a truck mowed down shoppers on a busy street in central Stockholm before crashing into a department store. Five people died in that attack.

On 11 June 1994 — a 24-year-old second lieutenant and shooting instructor in the Swedish army donned his military uniform and used his AK5 automatic rifle to kill seven people in the town of Falun.

— With additional reporting by Agence France Presse and Reuters.