WARSAW — A third attack at a Polish school in less than a week unfolded Saturday in the capital, Warsaw, where a 21-year-old woman injured three people inside an educational institution, police said. The attacker used what Warsaw police spokesman Jakub Filipiak described to the Associated Press as a “dangerous object” to strike a 17-year-old woman, and in the process hurt two others, aged 17 and 24. None of the injuries were life-threatening, according to police.
The assault capped a turbulent week that has shaken a country where violence by minors in schools has, until now, been largely unfamiliar. It followed two attacks earlier in the week — one that left a school custodian dead — and prompted an extraordinary nationwide security mobilisation. On Saturday alone, police detained 76 people across Poland and checked nearly 50,000 schools, according to AP, as authorities scrambled to head off further bloodshed.
Two attacks, one week, a country on edge
The first attack came Wednesday, when a 19-year-old student at a vocational school in the Mazovian province of central Poland attacked fellow students, teachers and passersby with a sharp object. Nine people were injured before the assailant fled and was arrested nearby, AP reported. The following day, a 15-year-old killed a school custodian and wounded two others in a knife attack at his former school, also in Mazovian province. Both attackers were Polish nationals and remain in custody. There has been no official confirmation that the two attacks were linked.
By Thursday night, rumours that the attacks were coordinated and that more were coming on what was dubbed “bloody Friday” spread through parents’ online groups and into mainstream media coverage. In response, 59 schools across Poland preemptively suspended classes on Friday — the majority in the Mazovian district, where Warsaw is located. School directors sent messages announcing stepped-up security measures, including extra staff stationed at entrances and voluntary backpack checks.
“There will be no compromise here. The safety of the youth is the most important thing,” Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said, according to AP.
The detentions announced Saturday reflected the scale of the alarm. Among those taken into custody were a 14-year-old boy from a central Warsaw district found with a knife with a concealed blade and 11 firecrackers, and a 16-year-old from another Warsaw district who arrived at school with a butterfly knife in his backpack. Others had posted photos of knives online, threatened their peers, or threatened school attacks.
No evidence of an internet challenge
Despite the wave of threats, the government said it had so far found no evidence that an internet challenge promoting school attacks was underway. Authorities also have not confirmed any link between the two earlier attacks. Both perpetrators are in custody.
Meanwhile, schools across the country had already tightened security on Friday, with some suspending classes entirely, many parents choosing to keep children at home, and police patrols deployed to educational institutions. The measures will continue, authorities said, alongside organised crisis training.
The week’s violence has also thrust parents into an uncomfortable new role: figuring out how to talk to their children about school violence, a conversation many Polish families have never had to have before.
Tusk pushes online content crackdown
Prime Minister Donald Tusk used the moment to press for legislation that would give his liberal government new powers to block harmful online content — a bill he said is now more urgent than ever. “If that juvenile attacker had streamed the crime online today, we would have been unable to block that content because we have not been given that legal tool,” Tusk said, according to AP.
The 15-year-old in Thursday’s attack wore a camera to record his actions, AP reported. After wounding three adults, he was ultimately overpowered by school director Krzysztof Ochmański, who later told reporters there was a moment when the boy seemed to grasp the enormity of what he had done and said he did not want to continue.
“Once I had established contact, he asked me for help,” Ochmański recounted. “It got to the point where he wanted a hug.”
The attacks have left a country unaccustomed to such violence by minors searching for answers — and for reassurance — as authorities promise continued security measures and a renewed legislative push.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/10/10/third-school-attack-in-less-than-a-week-shakes-poland/