Thread: ‘If you stay here, they'll kill you’ Eyewitnesses at Crimea's college shooting descri

At least 19 people were killed and nearly 40 were injured in gunfire and a series of explosions at the Kerch Polytechnic College in eastern Crimea on October 17, leading the city to declare a state of emergency and the peninsula to announce a three-day mourning period. Meduza collects some of the first eyewitness reports published in the Russian news media.

MORE. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/10...ey-ll-kill-you

On October 17, a student at Kerch Polytechnic College in eastern Crimea murdered more than a dozen of his fellow classmates. Almost nothing is known about him, so far.

The armed individual filmed by surveillance cameras at Kerch Polytechnic College during Wednesday’s mass murder is named Vladislav Roslyakov. He is apparently the one who killed at least 19 students and instructors, injuring dozens more.


Eighteen years old, Roslyakov was a senior at Kerch Polytechnic College, enrolling at the school in 2015, according to Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee.


Speaking to the magazine RBC on the condition of anonymity, a friend said Roslyakov “really hated the college because of its evil teachers, and he hinted that he would get back at them.” “He never showed any signs of aggression, he was a quiet young man who never had any problems [with the police], and he was getting a stipend,” Sergey Aksyonov, the head of Crimea’s local government, told the television network Rossiya 24.


Most of what we know, so far, about Roslyakov comes from the tabloid Mash, which says he was a “shy young man who spoke to almost no one and who long ago deleted all his social media accounts.” Apparently, he also had an unhealthy interest in serial murderers. Roslyakov’s parents are reportedly divorced and he lives with his mother, who works as a nurse at a local oncology clinic. Mash later reported that police detained Roslyakov’s father for questioning.


Another source claiming to be one of Roslyakov’s classmates told Mashthat he came to campus on Wednesday with two backpacks: one gray and one black. The classmate says he and another student said hello to Roslyakov, surprised that he'd skipped class that morning. Later, when the young men were outside, they heard gunfire.


Without revealing the source of the information, the Telegram channel 112 claims that Roslyakov got a license in early September for a 12-gauge firearm, and he apparently bought 150 rounds for the weapon. Crimea’s children’s rights commissioner, Irina Klyueva, later confirmed that Roslyakov got a permit for a hunting rifle in early October.


Roslyakov was found dead on the second floor of the college’s main building. According to Aksyonov, the teenager shot himself.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/10...llege-massacre