Police entered Fagersta school as deadly violence alarm sounded

Police and firefighters had practised responding to an ongoing deadly violence incident just 15 minutes before an alarm was raised at Brinellskolan in Fagersta, SVT reports. The alarm came at 2:06 p.m., and the perpetrator was stopped ten minutes later.

A month after the school attack, police and emergency services have described the first minutes of the response. When the code for ongoing deadly violence is broadcast, emergency services are trained to act immediately.

“It is among the worst things we can face. You get a shiver through your body,” said Roger Gustafsson, an operations commander with the police in Västmanland.

The first police patrol arrived at the school within a few minutes and entered alone, without reinforcements. The next patrol was, according to the police publication Polistidningen, 25 minutes away.

“The first patrol on the scene acts as we have trained and as you expect a police officer to act. They go in and seek confrontation,” Gustafsson said.

The fire station is only a few minutes from Brinellskolan. Rasmus Åkerfeldt, the team leader of the first firefighting unit to arrive, said he had watched an exercise on treating casualties in such a situation just 15 minutes before the alarm.

The firefighters encountered a chaotic situation and a seriously injured person. Two firefighters began providing emergency medical care with school staff, while others focused on security.

When reports came in of more seriously injured people inside the school, the team moved towards the building. Police had entered, but could not yet guarantee that the premises were safe. Åkerfeldt nevertheless decided to go inside.

“We chose to take that risk because we knew there were seriously injured people in there. I made it voluntary, but everyone chose to go in,” he said.

Inside the school, the team followed the procedure it had practised: some members focused on medical care while others concentrated on security.

Police, firefighters and ambulance services have strengthened their training and exercises for ongoing deadly violence over several years. The training has gradually expanded across Sweden.

“We hold continuous exercises. We train together with the fire service, ambulance services and other actors,” Gustafsson said, also praising the school and others involved for their response.

Evaluations of the incident are still under way.

“We did what we could,” Åkerfeldt said.