Russia Blames Student in Crimea School Attack That Killed 19

(Bloomberg) -- An attack that killed at least 19 people at a Crimean trade school Wednesday was the work of a student, not terrorism as earlier suspected, officials said.

The Investigative Committee said it had re-qualified the charge to mass murder based on its preliminary findings. It identified the attacker as 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov, a fourth-year student, who killed himself after shooting his victims.

The attack at the Kerch Polytechnic College wounded more than 50 in the city of Kerch, near the eastern end of the peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, the Investigative Committee said.

The victims died from gunshot wounds, the agency said. Initial reports said that that many of the victims were killed when a shrapnel-filled bomb went off in the cafeteria. Local officials said the explosion had severely damaged the first floor.

President Vladimir Putin ordered the Federal Security Service to investigate the tragedy, his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.

Kerch is the landing point and namesake of a bridge that opened earlier this year to connect Crimea to Russia. Security on the bridge was tightened after the attack, RIA Novosti reported.

School shootings are rare in Russia, where firearms are subject to tight legal restrictions.

--With assistance from Stepan Kravchenko.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net;Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin

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