Police: Racist motive behind Swedish school attack

People light candles and lay flower tributes outside the school Thursday afternoon where a masked man stabbed four people Thursday Oct. 22, 2015, in Trollhattan, Sweden. A knife-wielding masked man stabbed four people Thursday at a school in southern Sweden, killing one teacher and a student before being shot by police, authorities said. (Adam Ihse/TT via AP) SWEDEN OUT People light candles and lay flower tributes outside the school Thursday afternoon where a masked man stabbed four people Thursday Oct. 22, 2015, in Trollhattan, Sweden. A knife-wielding masked man stabbed four people Thursday at a school in southern Sweden, killing one teacher and a student before being shot by police, authorities said. (Adam Ihse/TT via AP) SWEDEN OUT

By Associated Press October 23, 2015 2 min read

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – The attacker who stabbed two people to death at a school in Sweden before being shot and killed by police had a racist motive, police said Friday.

Police labeled the stabbing in the industrial town of Trollhattan a so-called hate crime based on discoveries they made when searching the perpetrator’s home, the way he dressed, his behavior at the scene and the way he selected his victims.

“All together, this gives a picture that the perpetrator had a racist motive when he committed the crimes at Kronan school,” police said in a statement.

A 21-year-old masked man, who has not been identified by police, entered the school in southern Sweden Thursday and stabbed four people, two of whom died, before he was shot by police. He later died of his wounds.

According to Swedish media, the assailant posed for photos with students before beginning his deadly rampage in the halls of the Kronan school in the town that has a large immigrant community. A majority of the students at Kronan are foreign-born.