Police in Poland have arrested a 21-year-old woman after she injured three people in the third knife attack recorded at schools in the country this week. Officers said she used a “dangerous object” against a 17-year-old girl at an educational institution in Warsaw, the capital.
The attack came a day after thousands of officers visited schools nationwide, following two stabbings earlier in the week, one of them fatal for a school caretaker. A Warsaw police spokesperson said officers could not yet confirm whether the latest incident was linked to those two cases.
Victims and suspect in the Warsaw case
Authorities told local media that the 17-year-old hurt on Saturday had been taken to hospital, but her condition is not considered life-threatening. The state news agency reported that two other women, aged 17 and 24, were also injured after arriving at the school to hand in enrolment paperwork.
Police told local media that the suspected attacker is a student at the school. Early findings, they said, suggest she did not know any of the three victims.
Nationwide security drive and internet challenge link
Schools across Poland had tightened security after knife attacks on 7 and 8 October. Police said they had detained 76 people after deploying across the country. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there was no room for compromise when it came to protecting children and keeping schools calm.
Local media, citing a police spokesperson, reported that authorities had information suggesting this week’s incidents could be connected to an internet challenge.
Earlier in the week, a 19-year-old student injured nine people at a vocational school in the Mazovian province of central Poland. The following day, a 37-year-old caretaker was killed after a 15-year-old entered a primary school in Leszczydół-Nowiny, north of Warsaw.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński also said a 17-year-old had been detained in Sierpc, north-west of Warsaw, after allegedly telling people at a school that he planned to do something dangerous and intended to harm someone.
