15 Dead, 24 Wounded in School Shooting

(DCWatchdog.com) – Dozens of people, including many children, have been killed and wounded in a school shooting attack in Central Russia.

The sole perpetrator of the attack seems to have admired the Nazis and shooters in the 1999 Columbine school massacre in the US state of Colorado.

At least 15 people have been killed, and 24 others have been wounded in Monday’s school shooting in Russia, AP reported, as cited by CNBC. A total of 11 of those killed and 22 of those injured are children.

The massacre occurred in School No. 88 in Izhevsk, a city of 650,000 people some 600 miles east of Moscow. Izhevsk is the capital of Udmurtia, an autonomous republic within Russia.

Russia’s Investigative Committee reported later on Monday that the gunman is 34-year-old Artyom Kazantsev, a graduate of the school he targeted.

Kazantsev managed to commit suicide after the attack before he could be arrested. The investigators have not made public any information about his likely motives.

The Investigative Committee only said that the shooter was wearing a black T-shirt with “Nazi symbols,” namely, a swastika.

The police officers who found Kazantsev’s body also discovered that he carried two key chains, which seemed to be connected with the 1999 high school shooting in Columbine, Colorado.

Ten people perished, and 11 were wounded in the Columbine massacre committed by shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in Colorado 23 years ago.

One of the key chains worn by the Russian high school shooter read “Columbine,” and the other had the words “Eric” and “Dylan.”

The gunman had inscribed the word “hate” on some of the ammunition magazines he used for the attack.

Alexander Brechalov, the President of Udmurtia, revealed that the shooter had been registered as a psychiatric patient.

Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, called the school shooting in Izhevsk a “terrorist act.”

“President Putin deeply mourns deaths of people and children in the school, where a terrorist act took place,” Peskov told reporters.

Rosgvardia, the Russian national guard, revealed that to commit the school murders, Kazantsev used two non-lethal handguns, which were reworked so they could fire live bullets.

The official criminal probe into the shoot in Russia’s Izhevsk is on the illegal possession of firearms and multiple murders.