Guns and knives in class: Czech schools grapple with rise in violence

  • Guns and knives in class: Czech schools grapple with rise in violence
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Aggression in Czech schools is on the rise. In the course of last week alone police received 13 emergency calls from schools reporting attacks on teachers or classmates. Officers arrested altogether 10 persons and seized one firearm, two magazines, two knives, an axe and a mock revolver. How are schools preparing for such crisis situations?

Two decades ago, Czechs had no reason to fear for their children’s safety at school and fatal attacks on classmates was something they only saw on the news from abroad. The situation has now radically changed.

The first shock came in 2004 when a 16-year-old student at a school in Svitavy stabbed his sixty-year-old teacher to death with a knife in class. The teacher was stabbed 18 times.

In 2011, a 15-year-old student at the Chomutov high school used a meat mallet and a knife to attack the school secretary. The woman suffered several blows to the head, but survived. The attacker was pacified by a school official before the police arrived.

Illustrative photo: Raditya Febrian,  Pixabay,  Pixabay License

In 2012, a 16-year-old student at a secondary school in Rakovník attacked his teacher with a knife  during break. He stabbed her in the back, causing serious injuries. The teacher was airlifted to hospital and survived the attack.

Another tragic incident occurred in 2014 on the school grounds of a secondary school in Žďár nad Sázavou. A 26-year-old mentally ill woman attacked students with a knife, wounding two 17-year-old students and killing a 16-year-old who came to their aid. It was assumed that the woman had chosen the school at random, however it later emerged that she was the same woman who had entered a school in Havířov two years earlier. At the time, she took a seven-year-old schoolgirl hostage and seriously injured a school employee who defended her. The girl held hostage was rescued by a riot squad.

In 2022 a 19-year-old secondary school student killed his teacher with a machette over alleged bullying and poor grades. He received 12 years in jail.

In 2023, a pupil in Česká Třebová attacked his classmate with a knife, causing minor injuries. That same year a 16-year-old pupil of a secondary school in Třebíč attacked a school worker with a knife.

December of 2023 brought the most tragic attack in the country’s modern history. A lone shooter went on a rampage at the Prague Faculty of Arts, killing 14 people and injuring 25. He was one of the university’s own students and had hidden a cache of weapons on the school grounds.

Last year a primary school girl stabbed two classmates in Domažlice before she was pacified by staff.

Most recently – last week a 13-year-old boy at the Rudolfovo school turned a gun on his classmates and then his teacher as she wrestled to disarm him. He pulled the trigger twice, but fortunately no shot was fired.

Parents are increasingly worried and psychologists are ringing alarm bells.

What is fueling the growing aggression in schools and are they prepared to deal with it?

The head of the Czech Union of Schools Jiří Nekuda says he is very worried.

Jiří Nekuda | Photo: Archive of Jiří Nekuda

“Unfortunately, the level of aggression is increasing and we should not underestimate the danger. The situation is really getting worse and it is only a matter of time before something very serious happens.

“I think the overall mental state of children has worsened especially post-Covid. We see that the children have problems, they don’t know how to cope with them and sometimes they vent their frustrations in a violent way. We have to be prepared for that and we have been taking measures. We try to minimize the danger, but there are some things we can't prevent. If an attacker acquires a weapon in the school, for example in our kitchen where there are knives, we can't prevent that.”

The past week brought a record number of such incidents at schools around the country. Police President Martin Vondrášek says that security in schools has grown into a big priority for the force.

“I have to say that the past week was really exceptional. However, throughout 2024, there was basically not a week where we didn't have to respond to an emergency call from a school concerning some sort of threat, whether it be arson, shooting or some other form of violence. If we look back at the past week - there were thirteen emergency calls and in ten of those cases we had to detain someone, confiscate firearms or cold weapons, dummy revolvers, ammunition and, unfortunately, even assist the placement of some minors in psychiatric care.”

Jiří Nekuda says that schools now lose no time in reporting suspicious behavour to the police.

“We report it immediately. And I have to say that after the incident at the Faculty of Arts, the police have started to take emergency calls from schools very seriously, which unfortunately was not the case previously. Sometimes they would even question the need for the police to intervene. Today, the police responds fast. If we have suspicious signals, like statements made on social media or students bring something that could serve as a weapon to school it is immediately reported to the police and the police respond.”

Illustrative photo: Alexandra_Koch,  Pixabay,  Pixabay License

According to medical statistics around 40 percent of teenagers in Czechia suffer from mild to serious depression and a growing number of youngsters are self-harming. Given the lack of psychologists for minors, this is developing into a huge problem. Asked whether there is a common factor, a motive behind the growing number of attacks, Police President Martin Vondrášek had this to say.

“I don't think you can find a common motive there. Often the threats are directed at teachers or classmates and they come from pupils or students who feel some kind of injustice. I have to say that – although this is not our area of expertise – in some cases it is quite obvious from the actions taken that the child is crying out for help. If he or she does not receive that helping hand for a long time, whether from family, a psychologist or some other person, then he or she resorts to such extreme actions.

“I am not present at every interrogation but I can say that some children emulate these bad examples. When an incident like a hoax call warning of a bomb happens and receives media coverage, at that moment the number of similar acts, increases.”

The head of the Czech Union of Schools Jiří Nekuda says the lack of psychologists is a huge problem for schools.

“Unfortunately, this is one of the biggest weaknesses. There is a lack of child psychologists across the country. We, as a large school don't have one either. When cases arise, we ask for intervention at the military counseling office, which has enough on its plate as it is. One positive development is that last week it was announced that intervention teams would be set up at counselling centres, who would be able to go into schools and help us with things we do not know how to deal with.”

Schools around the country are now preparing to deal with the growing violence as best as they can. Police President Martin Vondrášek says that he glad to see that everyone is taking the situation very seriously.

Martin Vondrášek | Photo: Agáta Faltová,  Czech Radio

“First of all, I want to thank not only schools and their staff, but also the general public for being much more observant and perhaps giving us information that they would not have given us previously. This is a good thing, and it certainly serves a preventive purpose. We also see a huge interest from schools to cooperate and work on prevention and crisis management. We have trained specialists on the protection of soft targets at each regional headquarters. And we are happy to provide training. In 2024, we conducted almost 1,000 soft target protection trainings, of which 97 were in universities, 355 in primary and secondary schools and the rest in other soft targets.

“Schools are taking their own security measures, practicing evacuations, and the moment we find that adequate security measures are in place, then comes the “exercise” phase. So, if the school is interested, we plan an "active attacker" or some other thematic exercise, and then we carry it out either independently or in cooperation with other components of the integrated rescue system. I just want to say that there were 142 such exercises last year and it benefits both sides, since in the Rudolfovo school incident last week you could see that the staff and pupils knew what to do and the police were entering premises they were already familiar with.”

Author: Daniela Lazarová | Source: Český rozhlas
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