Student Stabs Teacher's Neck in Classroom Attack

Russian authorities have opened an attempted murder investigation Friday after a student at a 10th-grade high school allegedly attacked his physics teacher with a knife.

The 17-year-old suspect, who has not been named, targeted the teacher at the Lyceum No. 1 in the city of Berezniki in the Perm region, east of Moscow, according to Russia's regional investigative committee.

"Witnesses are being questioned," the committee said in a statement, "the circumstances of the incident are being established, including the motive, reasons and conditions that led to the carrying-out of the crime."

In a statement to Interfax, the Perm department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said that the student had "committed illegal acts against the teacher, using an object similar to a knife."

Witnesses told Properm.ru that the student entered the classroom during a lesson, took out the weapon from his schoolbag and stabbed the teacher in the throat. Classes at the school have been canceled and students are receiving counseling.

The newspaper Kommersant named the victim as Lyudmila Ishmeneva, 74, and described her as a highly regarded physics teacher who had been nationally recognized for her work, including receiving the title of "Honored Teacher of the Russian Federation." Her students had also won regional and national physics-related competitions.

Properm.ru reported that she had retired but had returned to the school to make up for a teacher shortage.

Sources told Kommersant that the school did not have a functioning metal detector, although the regional Education Ministry said the building had been guarded by a private security company.

The student was detained by a school security guard until officers arrived, and a video on Kommersant's website of the incident's aftermath shows a teenage boy being put into a police car.

The victim is in a "moderately severe" condition. Head of the regional Health Ministry, Anastasia Kruten, told Properm.ru that the victim had been transferred to a hospital in the regional capital of Perm where she was being treated for a stab wound to the neck.

Students and teachers expressed their shock. Someone who knew the attacker said: "I don't know what prompted him to do this."

Meanwhile, regional children's rights ombudsman, Svetlana Denisova told the Tass news agency that the suspect had not been registered with the school. "Everyone is in shock.

"They cannot understand what happened. Was it a conflict with the teacher? Or just some kind of malfunction in the child's behavior?"

"It is too early to express judgments," she said. "The teacher is hospitalized, the boy will incur criminal punishment. He is in the 10th grade and is subject to criminal liability."

Newsweek has contacted the Perm regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for comment.

On May 11, children in Kazan, in the region of Tatarstan, in western Russia, had to jump from the third floor of their school after a gunman opened fire, killing eight people.