international. children. killed in a. school in the russian. people . killed. hundreds of. protests.

here on the program. during his trip to. the. great. welcome to the program. here in moscow we do start this hour with breaking news from russia where we understand at least 8 people including 7 children. being killed 16 others injured in a shooting at our school in the city. i should warn you you may find some of the

following scenes. if. you don't think. that i'm going to publish this. i never said. you know. i was going to brought a picture on exactly what happened there are trees down hawkins joining us in the studio you have been covering this now for the past few hours can you bring us up to speed on what do you know a lot ford has received from from inside the school really goes to show just the scenes about salute panic and destruction that have been going on there for the last couple of hours this incident began just before 10 am local time.

initial reports were that there were could have been multiple attackers that entered this college college number 175 in the capital of about 800 kilometers from moscow. those reports prove that there was only one attacker he has now been captured alive and he is in custody by security forces who arrived very quickly on the scene weirdness town here on the ground floor there were reports of some sort of explosion or perhaps even multiple explosions these haven't yet been confirmed obviously multiple eyewitness accounts could have witnessed and said slightly different things to the panic we do know the seeds inside were terrible and every parent's worst nightmare we saw in the parents was the school to see if their children were involved if there's anything they can do to help children along outside on the ground with bystanders offering them 1st aid doing what they can to help until emergency of services arrived quickly on the scene over 20 ambulances as

far as we know. we have been getting more information as time has gone on exactly how this attack of folded this is an eyewitness account we heard from one of the children who was in the school at the time let's take a listen to what they had to say. i woke up abruptly from the explosion and the sound of breaking glass from my balcony i saw the windows of the school blown out sort children fleeing apparently the teachers began to evacuate them through the windows someone was jumping from one window i also heard the muffled sounds of gunfire and i think it treats immediately called the emergency services but it was busy apparently people had already started calling after about 10 minutes police and ambulances started arriving the students got out quickly and ran over to the school fans i heard about $5.00 to $7.00 shots then it was quiet and the police were there 2 of them were climbing up to the roof checking to see if the suspect was there after that other emergency services began to arrive then when the

emergency services arrived and surrounded the site they began to evacuate the classrooms people came out in shock stood there and could not do anything they were taken away i saw emergency workers carrying out the wounded on stretchers. i think in shock production was described as a state of russia right now of a state of taught us thought of where the president is about the day of mourning morrow following events today particularly shocking of course for parents this is every parent's worst nightmare reminiscent of the shooting we saw in 20 tain in crimea and it's where there were 20 fatalities rheumatisms of 2004 and the beslan school of this crisis which this day is actually in the memories of russians as a day that was particularly dark and tragic in the country's modern history we heard from one mother who was also at the scene racing to see her child was evolved this is her account of what happened. so nancy. it's all right side is

home when an explosion happened in the school my son was there now it's all right but terribly shocked. as i said terribly shocked is is really putting it mildly of this incident of course developed over an hour and a half or so very conflicting accounts about what happened we do know now that the suspected shooter a 19 year old was armed with a escort a shotgun a turkish manufactured laws of use for hunting this is a foreign that he used obtained legally and that we understand from security forces just days before the attack he bought 150 caught reduces. the potion of what he was about to do he passed the doctor's checks in russia of course there are fairly strict gun controls not perhaps a strict as in the u.k. some european countries certainly stricter than in the united states with which you would normally associate these current events questions are going to be asked how

he obtained that how he passed the necessary checks and how this wasn't flagged up when he bought it we do another eyewitness account of a local journalist the stringer who was at the scene who tell us just about the aftermath of what happened when the shooter arrived and children began to be evacuated this is what he sent us a little earlier about 9 am i heard several loud bangs from the school the area i live nearby after the shots there was a pause for about 2 minutes and then another round of bangs about 10 overall after that there was the sound of an explosion then students proceed on mass running away from the school the security services acted very quickly in about 10 minutes we heard sirens then ambulances arrived and started treating the injured after about 40 minutes the area was cordoned off while nearby kindergartens were evacuated. as is often the case in these in these incidents casualty figures tend to fluctuate

when usually heard much higher casualties 30 plus. now there are at least 7 people killed and most of those are children and around 20 people in the hospital the local hospitals have call on people to come and donate blood from the 7 am tomorrow people have already arrived we've seen footage on social media telegram channels of people queuing up to donate blood testament to the city the region pulling together in what is a dark day in its modern history in terms of casualty figures the president of the republican royal fairly quickly on the scene he was there with an erratum hour he gave us this update around 40 minutes or so ago the president of the republic of. first of all this is a huge tragedy we've lost 7 children great 8 students 4 boys 3 girls they died right here on the 3rd floor. a tragedy for that school tragedy for. start

on a dark day year in russia's modern history as well you know went down sadly you know you you and me and we've been in this position before haven't we it's not it's not the 1st time that russia has been shocked by a shooting like this right here example you know absolutely and questions were raised as to the theory of a copycat attack was this individual inspired by what happened in 2080 in crimea 19 your 18 year old student off entered the school or college and shot and killed 20 people 60 injured the theory was there was mental health parcel drugs as well the same far arm was used in this incident then it's a foreign that's relatively cheap to obtain it's around $30000.00 rubles about $350.00 pounds that's an automatic shotgun doing a lot of damage in the wrong hands and especially at close range in a classroom environment one can only imagine the horror that these children must

have experienced and driven them to jump from the 3rd and 4th floors in the buildings the footage we saw earlier really absolutely shocking what must be going through those children's minds this used to jump out of risk serious injury and death rather than stay in there in the moments of the shooting unfolded. it's difficult to think about or do and i was going to i was going to ask you because we saw footage of where the school is located and then you see the footage of these mass blocks these apartment housing all around so you might think that some of the parents heard what was happening they heard the blast they heard the gunfire. what a position for a parent to be in knowing their child is in this school which is under siege by a gunman what more can you tell us about the position of the parents who were affected by this absolutely how rowing for bystanders and for parents we understand most of the children that were about curated were about to age or through the field in front of the school to kindergarten number one a one which is several 100 meters away from the school the fear for many parents of

course across the city across the public was that other attacks could take place and in fact one of the questions raised was accuracy of information and spreading of misinformation in the half an hour to hour or so after the shooting took place information began to spread that all the attacks were taking place across the city they were quickly proven to be inaccurate and the police are looking into those who spread this misinformation to spread this panic but certainly that would have been one of the 1st things on parents mind we have reports that people parents are calling police to say where is the security at other schools now. school is vulnerable our school is on the safe we want more protection pete pirates are going to be very concerned and very worried and even if this incident is now isolated it's now out of control it's been captured the terror amongst all parents throughout the republic could my school be next could most children's kindergarten

be next certainly it's it's difficult to to imagine yourself in that position don't as as as you say the gunman has been captured what can you tell us about the security response how long did it take for the police to get on location here there was initially some conflicting information about security arrangements school initial information said the security guard was the 1st to be targeted that's still being verified the security company that god of the school have said they stopped working at the facility a number of months or even years ago the. are are some reports the school hired a private security guard to sit at the lobby at the reception and we understand the school had a panic button in the front which when pressed would someone security services now not button was pressed security was very quickly on the scene but are some of our specialist guests was saying earlier these wouldn't be heavily armed police officers this would be perhaps a couple of police cars with a couple of patrol officers armed with just relatively light firearms what they

were going into that school faced with reports of explosions the potential of multiple attackers they were probably preparing for quite a different scene they didn't know what they would face when going inside. so although an initial response was on scene very quickly before we saw some of those specialist officers going in there heavily armed swat teams perhaps the military that would have taken a little longer and join those precious minutes of course that nobody could have received nobody could have planned for that lives unfortunately would have been lost and down before i let you go can can you give us an update on the lives that were lost one of the numbers we know some of the casualties are going up and down rory at this stage the. interview we saw from the president there happened probably an hour or so ago now we're talking at least 8 fatalities multiple of those children we don't know how they died at this stage whether that was from the shooting or tragically jumping from the top floors of the building. we can gather

from the request of the ministry for blood donations that people in critical condition at least 6 children we understand are in reanimation in critical condition their lives are currently hang in the balance in the hands of the medics who are doing all they can the rest are in a serious condition they've been taken to various hospitals across the city we're understand the president putin is aware he sent his condolences on a plane with medics and with specialist psychologists. it's already being prepared to fly out of the city. the physical trauma is of course the approach to saving lives but it's the office of the mental health that will take far longer to heal. something that's considering that same consideration for the authorities for the community to come together to deal with what's going on the doctor stays in for more mr. hawkins as the as the president our son was saying to more is

a national day of mourning so i thank you for the update on the breaking news we'll speak to you soon thank you well a video of the shooter entering the school has now emerged online the local investigative committee says it will launch a psychiatric review of the perpetrator and no motive has yet been established and police have already questioned the suspect in another video showed online the claim he realized he was god 2 months ago and last summer he started hating everyone around him because he said a monster had awakened inside of him however he stressed he had reached that conclusion on his own and no one made him think that way well we heard it from the neighbors of the suspected shooter. who we met this boy before he's our neighbor and i remember his face i noticed that he had a very intelligent appearance he was a very tidy i've never seen him had a knowledge was and he dubious people he was a very quiet guy and always still him all by himself not with friends not with

a girl or let's go live now to a mr mark on the director of the crisis research institute joining us here on r.t. international thanks for coming on the program today the the mass shootings obviously this is well it's very unfortunate what happened at this stage what makes people so vulnerable do you think to a situation like this marc. well i think whether we're talking about an individual case as it seems to be or a terrorist case i think basically there are these terrible psychological pressures and so quite often we have to try to separate out the medically ill psychologically ill person from a political religiously motivated killer which in many ways this reference you just had for instance this young man's apparent so hyper sense of his divinity and so on that these isolated individuals who may see them externally through quite normal but on. the inside probably up with muscles and resentments and pressures if they

have access to weapons and then they have perhaps in this case a target that is related to the militants who can really into a sudden explosive fit and it's therefore extremely difficult to predict because at least if somebody has associated themselves with that it streams political or religious organization the chances are that some kind of police or security service what knowledge of that group was when you have an individual who is really operating as a lone wolf and made indeed be. almost without friends in his room in his peer group it's awfully difficult to predict how it's going to happen because of fortunately there are a lot of unhappy teenagers a lot of isolated and rather lonely people but most of them get over 99.9 percent so i think one of the dangers of this or situation is calling for solutions calling for action by the state which will affect thousands and thousands of otherwise homeless people but may still not be able to spot this random very rare but very dangerous books what do you think can be done though as we understand the suspected

shooter is we should say he legally bought this weapon he went under a number of tests he was clinically you know assessed and he was given the green light to go ahead to purchase this rifle to get the cartridges and get the i mean it in as well. how does something like this actually happen when you when you've been put through all the tests and you've been deemed legal and legitimately ok to have a weapon like this what goes wrong with someone to suddenly buy to do it all this guy's we understand was that of a 1st year at university and then he went back to this school which is a high school with younger children i mean how does something like this happen do you think marc honestly well i think we all have to say anybody who's almost vertical say they're baffled by the motivation and the rational inside the mind of somebody and the great problem is precisely because it is so unusual there are going to be large numbers of people who in retrospect fit the bill except that they don't do these incentives are to do so there's a problem the problems as you say

a professional survey of people who are entitled to a cunt license and it seems to me that one problem here is precisely having an automatic weapon which maybe prime loose people go hunting the dollars is a for much more dangerous it might be that you could change the rules to say that only single shot rifles will be very likely future it might also be the case you might have to say should somebody age 18000000 teen be able to acquire a gun for hunting and and obviously in russia as in canada or in north america there's a long tradition of perfectly legitimate hunting with clothes on and it's very difficult isn't it sends an 1819 year old should not be allowed to go hunting when what you're basically saying is that one in a 1000000 people is a risk how far can we prevent everybody else doing this what we might be able to for instance grip them acquiring a bunch of mounts and i mean and also an automatic weapon but now of course has it not the america you have the problem at least weapons are in circulation so even if you were to have them from tomorrow you would still have to us what happens to

those that were of your own will they be easily scooped up by the authorities or will or not become that a black market in. what mark i wanted to mention because even you mentioned that to north america for a moment and i was going to bring it into the conversation but america typically has many more shooting incidents than what basically the most out of any country in the world for the most part russia has had a few mass shootings in the past several years. are there is there a cultural difference or a set of influences perhaps that affected a potential shooter in america differently from a potential shooter in russia for example because shootings continue to happen but we're talking ideologically they could be very very different or perhaps they're the same yeah well certainly the scale of this image in russia as it comes are which i mentioned but also we could throw in countries like finland and germany to which you had individual cases of school shootings like this they are extremely rare a much more common place sadly in the united states but therefore i think simply

the availability of weapons by itself isn't the explanation and therefore it's some kind of interaction between people's individual psychological state and then various pressures from say social media from a culture and so how from these things we triggered by external factors or how far they are entirely so generated is something that is really a very difficult thing to do because a so one of the problems with this kind of violence it mercifully even in america or question these are very rare it's just statistically because when you have such a relatively small number of people particularly in russia and mention you do this it's very difficult for psychologists or social scientists to actually detect. because we were talking mostly once every few years out of x x 1000000 number of people who could be in the group that might theoretically be a risk which obviously is x. 1000000 minus one or 2 people. well mark i would like to ask you you are the director of the crisis research research institute if you could send some advice

perhaps or suggestions you go for it he's down in and in the capital talking to stan what kind of advice what kind of recommendations would you give them so that they can prevent or at least earlier stop something like this from happening again mark. well i think ultimately there are 2 problems arose one is as you say how to prevent and prevent future incidents of this sort by at least making it more difficult for these individuals relatively rare individuals who are suddenly motivated but extremely violent focused attacks better perhaps protection of schools but how many priests you have available to all schools against every day you get such incidents and and what else. the other problem i think seems to be though it's worth thinking about is there are terrorist groups who will be looking at this event and saying how did the police react how did the trick you heard already from some of your local people saying they fear that other schools or the building might be being attacked in the city because rumors spread and so one of

the dangers of this sort of event is that whilst the police and the local government or the just really trying to solve the problem that's taken place that will suit who and where is it and sort of particular case prevention future there are unpleasant dangerous ideologically driven terrorist groups who will be looking at this as a training manual how the in this case the russian police or purchase react and therefore what they might do if they want to set up a multiple attack this is this is i think one of the most unpleasant us mix of these things that most people are horrified by these events disgusted to wish well to the victims and their families but there will be one or 2 people who will be looking at this from you know well the ghoulish way if you what can we learn which can make these sorts of things even worse in the future if they are able to strike stage where you ask what can we learn what about the parents what can the parents learn here mark as i was just talking to dan hawkins here in describing how this all is essentially surrounded by these blocks of apartments where many of the parents will be living there knowing that their child is very close and safe in

this nearby high school but as we understand from the footage when some of the parents heard the blast all they heard the gunshots the gunfire some of them went running straight get into the building right into the scene of danger but how would you how would you assess the parents react. getting such a level of danger here but i am afraid this is one of the great films as parents and close relatives will naturally want to rush to the aid of their children even when it in these incidents as from as alone through to the present day can actually complicate matters was served as trying to isolate and to. stop that the terrorist or the gunman doing these attacks. but we can all understand that parents are not going to think rationally and we think worse of a parent who did think rationally situation the bigger problem is that nothing can obviously compensate all british or the person also children whose children be badly wounded to be traumatic effect for the local society and i fear every time a car backfires or whatever in the foreseeable future then this is happening again

. it might be however talking about reactions of some part of public education might be to say in the worst case scenario where there is a violent incident will have a serious accident although it's a natural reaction to want to rush to the scene do try to think through watch what you can actually do to help and sometimes what you can do to help is actually stand back but as i say it's very difficult in a moment of crisis the bay should do that or that they should think through what we talk about trying to help help the parents say what about the students what about the children in the school there were some in there in the original classroom where a lot of bloodshed occurred of course there are kids in other classrooms down the hallways who heard the gunshots these are kids who are potentially going to be scarred for life how do you help the children that you when you know what you have to live through this and deal with it for the rest of their lives. if it's always a very difficult to predict now what the traumatic effect is likely to be on those

people who were physically in the presence of the shooter and have survived possibly going to see other people killed and wounded and those in the immediate vicinity in the building hearing the shooting and that may have. the only thing that i would say is there's a lot of study or p. . well who have been violent events whether it's a matter like this or a war for what is surprising is how resilient young people can be and so for the psychologists who have been rushed to deal with these children and the other survivors the teachers and other school stuff it's a very difficult between. managing their immediate shock and trauma and sometimes the danger of reinforcing the sense that they should feel traumatized that they should live with something's going to shadow over them rather than trying to over this is it which working out months to several years rather than trying to help people to return to a normal life which might opens in particular those who are mourning who killed rather cruel people look at all and live their lives but that's that's also

a very central thing to do but the terrible result sometimes of these kinds of tragedies is that people not only are scarred for life but they live constantly in that situation with the terror off the track and it's a very subtle and difficult didn't do to help people out of that dark tunnel of fear and memory. mark what about let's that's a joke address the issue of the shooter the police have already had a word with the shooter and apparently he claimed that a couple of months ago he found out that he was a god and then and then he said he woke up to a monster inside of him can you offer any analytical insight into the state of his well being well i could i can't offer as a professional psychological doctor's report when i know about what i'm afraid we can see quite often from these cases were for instance the social media sometimes of people be involved in the shootings leave behind them a trace or sometimes they make equivalent of suicide video that some terrorists

made and as a sick but often i think we should see that the terrorists who engage in these kind of attacks on innocent civilians particularly children. probably psychological rather than political and ideological cases but it's this sense of i am a superhuman hero and the world doesn't recognize that i'm not valued as i ought to be not is something which is an extreme very extreme version of what a lot of teenagers will or they feel that their parents don't understand the school doesn't understand the world doesn't take them at their true work but this of course it multiplied by many many. thousands times to the sense that the i'm more isolated from my peer group as we've heard some of them are too new this or. i don't really have any interaction in the normal relations with my ex or people of similar age and at same time i feel that i am superior to them all and this is one of the factors that has led to this kind of violence and you can think even russian literature dostoevsky's or skolnick often crime and punishment is if you like the

murderer who psychology in a sense is a fictional portrait of this kind of personality i've markham and director of the crisis research into life here on our international during this breaking news thank you very much for your time we appreciate it thank you. thank you for joining us here on the china let's just give you a recap now of operate the news from russia this hour where as we understand at least 8 people including 7 children and one teacher have been killed 16 others injured in a mass shooting at a school and you are seeing live pictures right now that's according to the press service of the republic which goes on of course is the capital of the city is located around 800 kilometers from moscow the perpetrator has been captured is said to be a 19 year old who according to reports had a gun registered in his name and children have been evacuated from the side of the authorities claim the situation is now under control early reports suggested the

school was also hit by an explosion and we will continue to update you on this story throughout the day here on r.t. international and of course online at www dot com as well. is a reflection of reality. in the world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation if you don't see. you good right away. what is true. is. in the world corrupted you need to do this and.