Two teens allegedly killed three fellow students in a rare Philippine school shooting that was planned in advance, with one having trained at a firing range.
TACLOBAN: Two teens who allegedly killed three fellow students in a rare Philippine school shooting planned the attack in advance, police said Tuesday, revealing one had trained at a firing range.
Determining a motive, however, remained a work in progress, with bullying cited as a factor but national police suggesting “online influences” had also played a role.
READ MORE: Three killed in rare Philippine school shooting
Classes were cancelled across the shaken city of Tacloban, where police said 15 students from San Jose National High School were being treated for gunshot wounds, more than double the number revealed after Monday’s shooting.
One was in critical condition due to severe wounds suffered in the attack.
“His condition is under strict observation, but we were told he is fighting for his life,” Tacloban police spokeswoman Evalyn Diaz told AFP.
Both alleged shooters, aged 15 and 14, are in custody after the mass shooting in central Leyte province that saw terrified students screaming and crying as they hid beneath desks.
“All indications point to the fact that it was planned,” national police spokesman Allen Rae Co told a Tuesday afternoon press briefing, adding the two boys had huddled in the restroom for more than an hour the morning of the shooting.
Bullying has been widely cited as the motivating force, a theory Diaz said the investigation seemed to support.
But Co said that an unidentified online group may have also influenced their actions.
“Based on our initial investigation, (the 14-year-old) was heavily influenced by online content,” Co said.
“Aside from his posts of violent videos… We saw some indications that there is a group that might have influenced him to do this,” he said, adding more details would be forthcoming.
“I don’t think that it’s mutually exclusive. They could have been bullied and it further strengthened the online content’s influence on them.”
Co added that the 15-year-old would be tried as an adult as long as it was proven he was capable of “discernment” as required under Philippine law.
Shooting range
Police revealed on Monday that the 14-year-old had used a Glock 9mm pistol that belonged to his aunt, a police officer who has since been suspended and taken into custody.
On Tuesday, police said he had experience firing weapons.
“At one point, he was brought to a shooting range. He’s not that good or that highly skilled, but he knows how to manipulate the release of the magazine and how to reload,” regional police director Jason Capoy said.
The other involved gun, a .38 calibre pistol, was registered to a security agency where the 15-year-old suspect’s grandfather once worked.
One witness said the two gunmen had worked their way down a school corridor, firing through windows in “tactical” fashion, Capoy said.
He added that the younger of the two alleged assailants had been an avid player of GoreBox, described as an “extremely violent” first-person shooter video game.
Minutes after he spoke with reporters, the Philippines’ cybercrime centre issued a temporary ban on the game pending an investigation.
‘Just regular teens’
Philippine Education Secretary Sonny Angara, who visited the wounded on Tuesday, said many students and teachers were “not ready to tell what happened”.
“When it was the principal’s turn (to share) she collapsed,” Angara told reporters.
“That’s what we call trauma, which is very real.”
Faculty who did speak with police insisted the two shooting suspects had been unremarkable.
“The teachers have not told us anything bad about those two. They said they were just regular teens,” Diaz said.
While school shootings are a rarity in the Philippines, seven students were wounded earlier this month in a knife attack by an older student in Cavite province.
