A few hours after the attempted knife attack in a college in Rennes, the public prosecutor, Philippe Astruc, took stock of the event during a press conference on Wednesday evening.
Big scare this Wednesday in a college in Rennes. A 12-year-old girl in 5th grade threatened her English teacher with a knife in the middle of class. The events took place between 9:30 a.m. and 9:50 a.m. at the Hautes-Ourmes college. Wednesday evening, around 6 p.m., the public prosecutor, Philippe Astruc, spoke to the press to provide an update on the events that shook the school.
According to revelations made by the public prosecutor, the English teacher declared that her student had told her that she was “crazy” and “wanted to kill someone today, to kill the students”. In her sights more particularly, those who do not “like him and the person who is in front of me”, she would have said. Still according to her teacher, the young girl added: “It happened in Arras, I’m going to do the same.” The student then allegedly asked her teacher to see the weapon she had brought with her. It was then that she took out a 17-centimeter knife from her schoolbag. “At that time, other students became aware of the situation,” said the public prosecutor.
The English teacher would then have had the reflex to evacuate the classroom where she would have remained alone for a while with the student who was threatening her, before finally fleeing in turn. “At that moment, in the corridor a teacher who was giving open-door lessons [a compris] there [avait] an abnormal situation and [s’est rendue] in the hallway and [a agrippé] her colleague, brings her into her class and [a fermé] lock her class”, Philippe Astruc further detailed. The 12-year-old girl was then stopped and disarmed by a middle school mediator and a senior education advisor.
Known for behavioral and communication disorders
The young girl has since been placed in judicial detention, the equivalent of police custody for minors under 13 years old. This measure may possibly last 12 hours and may also be extended by 12 hours if necessary. If “his state of health was judged by a doctor to be compatible with this measure”, specified the prosecutor, a psychiatric medical examination was also ordered.
While the young girl’s family, of Mongolian origin, is not known to the police and is in a regular situation, the teenager had already become known for behavioral and communication disorders by the pass. Still according to the prosecutor, “between January and June of last year, she presented herself to her colleague in Chalais with a knife in her satchel”. The teenager had also “been the subject of a disciplinary council hearing in June following verbal threats and insults to a teacher. The disciplinary council had decided to exclude her”. An investigation into “attempted intentional homicide of a person responsible for a public service mission” was opened and is now continuing.