17-Year-Old Girl Killed in Sword Attack at Swedish School by Fellow Student, 18

An 18-year-old student walked into Brinell School in Fagersta, Sweden, on Friday afternoon armed with a sword and attacked fellow students while classes were in session. A 17-year-old girl was killed. Three others were wounded, two of them severely, according to police cited by CBS News and the Associated Press.

Fagersta sits northwest of Stockholm in Vastmanland County. Roughly 400 to 500 students were in the building when the attack happened, according to CBS News. The two seriously injured victims are boys, ages 12 and 17. A third victim, also a minor, was treated for minor injuries and has already been released from the hospital, Swedish news agency TT reported.

Police fired shots at the suspect during the confrontation but did not hit him, according to the Associated Press. He was arrested at the scene. The school's principal told local outlet P4 Vastmanland that the attacker was a student at Brinell, according to the Associated Press.

Police Chief Tommy Alriksson told reporters Friday there is "no reason at this time to believe that there are multiple perpetrators." He said the investigation into the killing and the wounding of three others is ongoing and that police are withholding details to avoid influencing witness statements.

Police spokesperson Pelle Vamstad told TT that officers received the alarm around 2 p.m. local time and are reviewing available camera footage. Investigators have carried out two house searches connected to the suspect, Sweden's national police said, and plan to interview a large number of witnesses.

No official motive has been released. Breitbart reported the suspect is a former student with a prior assault conviction and a history of mental illness, and noted the school had been evacuated in May over a threat, which police are examining for a possible connection to Friday's attack.

Vastmanland County declared a state of emergency Friday. It had ended by Saturday morning, according to the Associated Press.

Around 70 people gathered Saturday morning at a memorial site the municipality set up near the school, leaving flowers and lighting candles, TT reported.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Fagersta on Saturday. "What must never happen has happened again," he said, according to the Associated Press. He was joined by Magdalena Andersson, leader of the opposition Social Democrats. Kristersson has invited all party leaders to a meeting on the investigation's progress.

Sweden holds parliamentary elections in September. Political parties suspended campaign events on Saturday out of respect for the victims, the Associated Press reported.

Kristersson had posted on X Friday calling the attack a "serious incident" and noting the timing "right after the summer break." "We do not yet know what lies behind the act, but we know that the police are working very intensively," he wrote.

This is not Sweden's first school attack in recent years. Last year, 11 people including the gunman died in an attack at an education center in Orebro, the worst mass shooting in Swedish history, which pushed the government to propose tougher gun laws. 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 man stabbed three people to death at a school in Trollhattan before police shot him dead. Authorities called that a racist hate crime targeting dark-skinned students at a school where most students were foreign-born, according to the Associated Press.

Whether Friday's attack changes how Sweden responds to school violence, and whether the suspect's prior record and the May threat at Brinell get folded into a broader review, is now up to Alriksson's investigation and the political meeting Kristersson has called with party leaders. No court date, formal charge, or motive has been announced as of Saturday.