At an elementary school in Esslingen, a man stabbed a teacher and a seven-year-old girl with a knife. Both are taken to a hospital. Hours later, the alleged perpetrator asked a passer-by to call the police and allowed himself to be arrested without resistance.
After the knife attack at an Esslinger elementary school with two seriously injured, a 24-year-old was arrested. The Stuttgart public prosecutor and the Reutlingen police headquarters announced in the evening that the man was most likely the suspect.
He spoke to a passer-by in Stuttgart and asked him to alert the police because he was responsible for the crime in Esslingen, it said. He was arrested in Stuttgart in the early evening without resistance.
A 61-year-old caregiver and a little girl were seriously injured. The crime is said to have taken place in the entrance area of the school. The perpetrator was approached by an employee when he entered the school, the police said. But he didn't react to that, but ran into the basement and attacked the girl and the supervisor there with a kitchen knife. There were only a few children in the care. They would be given psychological care.
There is still no new information on the motive for the crime. Many questions remain unanswered: What was the man's plan? Was he specifically targeting the woman or child who was at the closed school as part of holiday care? Or were they accidental victims? The supervisor and the child stayed at the closed school as part of the holiday care, it is said after the crime.
Hours after the bloody crime at the elementary school, there was no trace of the man, the police searched with a large contingent, used sniffer dogs and a helicopter. According to the police, several suspects had been checked. All without success. Meanwhile, the man's victims had been taken to the hospital and treated. They were severely stabbed, but their lives are not in danger, as a police spokesman at the school building emphasized. A knife was found during a search around the school. However, it is still unclear whether this is also the weapon that the man used in his attack at school.
In Baden-Württemberg it is currently the Pentecost holidays, and children are being cared for at school. After the crime, the area is cordoned off until midday, and police officers search the building. Anyone who looks around after the crime in front of the school sees the questioning and shocked faces of local residents. "It's scary that something like this happened here," says one of them. It is actually a quiet area, but in the morning he was woken up by a police helicopter. "I can not believe this."
The scene of the crime, the Katharinenschule, is an all-day school on the edge of Esslingen's old town. During school time, a total of 280 boys and girls are cared for in the three classes of the four grades.
