Witness: Sweden Swordsman Wore "Darth Vader" Mask, Posed With Students During Attack
The man who allegedly killed a teacher and a student and wounded two others in a sword attack at a Swedish school Thursday morning was dressed in a black Darth Vader-esque mask and helmet. Two students posed for a photo with him in the midst of what they later learned was a stabbing spree. The girl who took the photo told Sweden’s Aftonbladet that immediately afterward, the man stabbed a teacher in front of them, then chased them through the halls of the school.
“Sara,” the photographer, said she had left class to get a pen when she saw a man with a suit and a bloody sword approach two of her friends. The girls thought the silent man, who “played strange, horrible, Halloween music,” was just dressed up for Halloween, and they wanted a photo.
After they’d finished posing, a teacher came out and asked the man to leave, Sara said. She said he just nodded and stabbed the teacher in the side. The only thing she heard him say during the entire encounter was “call an ambulance.”
The three girls ran through the school, up and down stairs, with the man chasing them, Sara said. By the entrance of the school, she saw three people lying on the floor.
News reports Thursday afternoon claimed that the attacker had stabbed four people—two students and two teachers—and that one teacher and one student had died. The two deceased victims were later identified as a 20 year-old teaching assistant and a 17-year-old student (not an 11-year-old, as initially reported). The surviving victims are a male teacher, 42, and a 15-year-old student.
The swordsman was shot once by police, and died later in a hospital after surgery.
Police haven’t yet released information on the attacker’s motives or his connection to the school, but “there have been some discoveries, which we cannot go into,” according to a spokesperson.
Swedish news sources including Aftonbladet and Nyheter24 have identified 21-year-old Anton Lundin Pettersson as the suspected school attacker. They report his social media profiles showed “extreme right-wing sympathies,” and that the anti-terrorist Swedish Security Service, Säpo, is now involved in the investigation.
