Swedish School Stabbing Was Racist Hate Crime, Confirm Police

The masked 21-year-old who attacked terrified students and faculty with a sword at a school in Sweden, taking the lives of a student and a teaching assistant before being shot by law enforcers, had extreme right-wing views, Swedish police have announced.

Police in Sweden have confirmed that the stabbing of students and a teaching assistant at a school in Trollhattan, near Gothenburg, on Thursday was motivated by racial hatred.

"We can confirm that this was a racially motivated hate crime," police chief Niclas Hallgren told Swedish Radio on Friday.

"We have reached this conclusion on the basis of what we found when we searched his apartment, his behavior during the act, and how he selected his victims."

LIVE-TV. Film visar hur Anton Lundin Pettersson valde ut sina offer. https://t.co/4pG98QkOQ8 pic.twitter.com/86Vtzpz4AF

— Expressen (@Expressen) 23 октября 2015

 The Swedish newspaper Expressen has identified the 21-year-old suspect in the knife attack as Anton Lundin Pettersson. Pettersson reportedly attacked 

people with a sword at the Kronan School in Trollhatten, which has many students from ethnic minorities, wearing a mask and a helmet similar to those worn by German soldiers during World War Two.

The suspect was shot by the police, and later died in a local hospital. A 17-year-old student and a 21-year-old teaching assistant died in the attack, and a 14-year-old boy and 41-year-old man remain hospitalized and are in critical condition.