The town of Spišská Stará Ves is recovering from Thursday’s (January 16) tragedy, in which a student and the deputy headmistress of the local gymnasium died after a knife attack, another student is in a Poprad hospital. Mayor Ján Kurňava told TASR that they are still in shock about what happened. According to him, it is a tragedy for the entire region. An 18-year-old student probably attacked the school, the motive for his act is currently unknown.
“Today, we are ordered to leave the principal, the elementary school and the gymnasium. There are intervention teams, we are preparing coordination so that those students who witnessed the incident will undergo some kind of counseling. They will work with those students, they will assess their condition, because they have gone through a huge trauma, and the next course of action will depend on that,” approached Kurňava.
He never personally came into contact with the student who is suspected of the attack, as he does not have a permanent residence in the city. However, he confirmed that the young man had an individual study plan and did not go to school regularly. “It happened in a third grade classroom where there was one victim and the other victim, the deputy, was in her office in the principal’s office,” added the mayor.
He reminded that Spišská Stará Ves is a small town, Zamagurie is a peaceful region, and so far such a tragedy has not happened there. “It’s still a shock, not only for us, but also for the neighboring villages, since one victim was from Matiašovice and another from Spišské Hanušovice, and the injured student who is in the hospital is from Spišská Stará Ves, so it affects the whole region. ” concluded Kurňava.
The attack at the school took place before 1:00 p.m. the suspect student then fled into the nearby woods. The police managed to detain him in about an hour. Police President Ľubomír Solák said on Thursday that there were more lightly injured people after the attack, but he did not specify their number.
According to Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka, the young man is not a “blank sheet of paper”. According to him, it is not yet clear what punishment he faces, as the legal qualification of the act has not yet been definitively concluded. Work is being done with the qualification of a particularly serious crime of murder, and premeditated murder has not been ruled out. The motive of the perpetrator will be subject to investigation.
