A 15-year-old former pupil killed a school employee and wounded two others in a knife attack at a Polish school on Thursday, police said.
The assault in Leszczydol-Nowiny, a village in Wyszkow County northeast of Warsaw, came just one day after a 19-year-old wounded 10 people in a separate school stabbing in Ostroleka, also in northeastern Poland. Officers detained the 15-year-old suspect shortly after he entered the school around 9:00 a.m. And attacked three staff members with what police described as “a sharp object.”
“Among the injured is the principal, who apprehended the 15-year-old,” police said on X. “Police arrived at the scene within minutes of the report, and police operations are currently underway.”
“Despite resuscitation efforts, the life of a 37-year-old school employee could not be saved,” police added on the platform. The principal and one other staff member survived the attack with injuries.
The back-to-back violence has rattled a country unaccustomed to school attacks and prompted emergency government action. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski revealed that in yet another incident, police in Sierpc in north-central Poland detained a 17-year-old who was planning an attack.
The prior day’s bloodshed unfolded Wednesday in Ostroleka, where a 19-year-old suspect wounded 10 people, including himself, in a knife attack at a school. Police detained him shortly after the incident, with his own injuries placing him among the victims.
Polish authorities now face the task of investigating whether the second attack was a copycat crime as they work to prevent further violence. The 15-year-old in Thursday’s killings, the 19-year-old in Wednesday’s mass wounding, and the 17-year-old allegedly planning an attack in Sierpc were all teenagers or young adults with connections to the targeted schools.
The principal’s role in subduing the 15-year-old attacker drew particular notice, with police highlighting the intervention in their public statements. The swift arrival of officers at both attack scenes, they noted, came within minutes of emergency calls.
Kierwinski’s disclosure of the third foiled plot suggested authorities are now tracking multiple threats simultaneously across different regions of the country. The geographic spread — from Ostroleka to Leszczydol-Nowiny to Sierpc — covers a significant portion of northern and northeastern Poland.
The 37-year-old employee who died was the first fatality in the two days of violence, while the total wounded across both completed attacks reached 13 people including the 19-year-old suspect. Police have not released additional details about the conditions of the two surviving staff members from Thursday’s attack.