•CCTV image of a gunman running near the school
A teenager opened fire outside a high school in western Turkey today, wounding 11 pupils, before being detained in the country’s third such shooting in six months, officials said.
Three of the victims were in serious condition following the attack outside a school in Turgutlu near the western city of Izmir, reports AFP.
“The treatment of 10 minors is ongoing, including three of whom are in intensive care,” Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci told a news conference in the nearby town of Manisa, saying one victim had been discharged.
Although shootings are rare in Turkey, it comes five months after two back-to-back attacks by teenagers on consecutive days in April that shocked the nation and sparked public concerns about security in Turkish schools.
Justice Minister Akin Gurlek earlier confirmed that all of the victims were minors.
He said the suspect’s parents and his grandfather had been detained for questioning over the attack, which saw police and rescuers rushing to the school with panicked parents.
According to Ciftci, the attack involved a gun “registered in the name of the (suspect’s) grandmother” which was kept at the grandparents’ home.
New security measures installed in response to the April attacks had been in place at the time of Tuesday’s shooting, the interior minister added.
One resident told the IHA news agency that they saw the gunman moments after the attack, saying he appeared to be angry.
“Gunshots rang out. I immediately went out onto the balcony. He was swearing as he walked towards the side street. He was shouting,” the local said.“He fired at people here with the gun he was carrying. We could not intervene because he had a rifle,” another eyewitness told IHA, which did not name either of the interviewees.
CCTV Footage
The DHA news agency broadcast CCTV footage of the alleged attacker, a young man wearing black jeans, a jacket and a green top, holding what looked like a long-barrelled gun.
The NTV private television channel reported that the weapon was a shotgun.
Footage from outside the school showed police wrestling a man to the ground before leading him away, as a woman screamed.
Onlookers were pressed against the school fence, filming with their mobile phones.
“How the weapon used in the attack ended up in the minor’s hands, the conditions under which it was kept and supervised… and allegations of bullying prior to the incident are all being investigated,” Gurlek, the justice minister, wrote on X.
The education ministry said all lessons were suspended for the day at the school.
School Safety
The attack comes after a 14-year-old opened fire in April at a school in the southern province of Kahramanmaras, killing a teacher and nine students aged 10 and 11. The attacker died at the scene.
A day earlier, another teenager opened fire at his former high school in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, wounding 16 people before taking his own life when confronted by police.
Following the attacks, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged his government would introduce tighter gun controls and vowed school safety would be a top priority.
Today’s shooting took place a day after Ciftci and Education Minister Yusuf Tekin introduced a raft of new security measures for the academic year, which began last week.
Ciftci said the ministry had deployed 31,000 school grounds supervisors and assigned police officers on permanent duty to first- and second-degree risk schools.
The interior minister said the school where the shooting occurred was “one of those classified as first-degree risk” a classification based on the numbers and types of crimes in the area.
