On the morning of 3 May 2023, a school shooting occurred at Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School in the Vračar municipality of Belgrade, Serbia. The shooter, identified as 13-year-old Kosta Kecmanović, opened fire on students and staff, resulting in the deaths of ten individuals, including nine students and a security guard. Six others, five students and a teacher, also sustained injuries.
Kecmanović surrendered willingly and was taken into custody. However, due to his age being below 14, which falls below Serbia's age of criminal responsibility, he could not face legal charges. His father legally owned the firearms used in the incident. Since the apprehension, Kecmanović has been placed under the care of a psychiatric hospital located in Belgrade. Meanwhile, legal actions have been initiated against his parents. His father faced charges for acts against public safety, while the mother was charged with criminal possession of a weapon. Both parents were also later charged with child neglect. Their criminal trial began on 29 January 2024, and they were found guilty on 30 December. They were also found liable in five civil lawsuits.
The attack occurred one day before a separate mass shooting in Serbia. Both shootings caused protests in the country.
Background
Serbia's gun laws and previous shootings
Despite strict gun laws, Serbia has one of the world's highest gun ownership rates per capita. In 2021, with an estimated 39 privately owned guns per 100 people, Serbia was the third-ranked country globally in this statistic, behind the United States and Yemen. Along with a culture of gun ownership and many households keeping guns as war trophies from the 20th-century wars in the region, illegal weapons became particularly widespread in some Balkan countries following the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.
Mass shootings are rare in Serbia and the rest of the Balkans. There had been three earlier mass shootings in Serbia in the 21st century: the 2007 Jabukovac killings, during which nine people were killed, and five were injured; the 2013 Velika Ivanča shooting, in which 14 people were killed; and the 2016 Žitište shooting, in which five people were killed and 22 injured. In 2019, there was an attempted school shooting in Velika Plana, though the perpetrator was stopped after shooting two bullets into the ceiling. None of those shootings or the attempted shooting involved a child as the perpetrator.
School
Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School (Serbian: Огледна основна школа „Владислав Рибникар”, Ogledna osnovna škola „Vladislav Ribnikar”) is a public elementary school in Vračar, an affluent urban area and municipality of Belgrade. It was formed, as a project of Franco-Yugoslav friendship, in 1975, through a merger of two existing, adjacent elementary schools. The site of the modern school building had successively been the site of various historic schools dating back to the 18th century. One of the two predecessor schools (Slobodan Princip Seljo Elementary School) had been founded in 1966 as a home to the pilot educational project of teaching a foreign language – French – from the first grade on. Starting in the 1966–1967 school year, French was led by Professor Raymond Vaillier, who did not speak any Serbian. It later became the norm to provide foreign-language education to first-graders in the country. However, Vladislav Ribnikar remains noted as an elementary school focusing on French-language education.
About 1,000 students attend classes. The school provides bilingual education in Serbian and French, serving as a French immersion school teaching 50% of the curriculum in French for grades 7 and 8, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs grants it LabelFrancÉducation. Among Belgrade's elementary schools, it has enjoyed a somewhat higher level of recognition. It has, from time to time, been perceived as an "elite school".
There is a mural of the prince and the fox from the French novella The Little Prince on the school's wall. The mural was made by Serbian street art artist Andrej Josifovski in 2016.
Shooting
The shooting began at around 08:40 CEST on 3 May 2023. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after entering Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School, Kecmanović immediately pulled out a gun from his backpack and shot and killed the school's security guard. He then shot and killed two hall monitors that he saw in the hallway, both girls,
after which he reloaded his gun while heading for his classroom. Upon entering the classroom, Kecmanović shot the history teacher and then fired at numerous people, killing another seven, six of whom were girls; another five students were wounded. One student, Ema Kobiljski, confronted Kecmanović, causing 8 or 9 students to flee from the classroom. Kobiljski would later be remembered as the "heroine of the school of death." He then ran through the hallway and into the courtyard, where he contacted the police at 08:42, according to the ministry at a press conference. He had two pistols: a 9mm CZ-75 Shadow 2 and a .22 LR Ruger MK III Standard.
Students who fled in panic after the shooting found shelter in a company's premises behind the school. Njegoševa Street was closed down after the shooting. After the shooting, a blood donation for the wounded students was organized at the Transfusion Institute.
Casualties
Fatalities
- Angelina Aćimović, 14
- Mara Anđelković, 13
- Bojana Asović, 11
- Ana Božović, 11
- Andrija Čikić, 14
- Adriana Dukić, 14
- Ema Kobiljski, 13
- Katarina Martinović, 12
- Sofija Negić, 13
- Dragan Vlahović, 53 (security guard)
— Various reports
The shooting resulted in the deaths of nine students – eight girls and one boy – and a security guard. According to the French foreign ministry, one of the deceased students, Adriana Dukić, was a French national. One girl, Ema Kobiljski, was the daughter of Dragan Kobiljski, a Serbian professional volleyball coach and former player.
In addition, six students and a teacher were injured. Of the injured, two boys and one girl were taken to the University Children's Clinic in Belgrade. The boys received gunshot wounds to their lower extremities. In contrast, the girl, who was also critically injured, received a severe head injury and had to undergo surgery. The boys and the teacher were later reported to be in stable condition. The critically injured girl, Angelina Aćimović, died of her wounds on 15 May despite urgent surgical intervention and intensive treatment measures, becoming the tenth victim in the shooting. The boy who was wounded in the spine had surgery in Chicago, Illinois, US, on 20 June 2023.
52-year-old history teacher Tatjana Stevanović, who was shot three times, underwent several surgeries at the Clinical Centre of Serbia in Belgrade. According to Večernje novosti, she is unable to walk or move her left arm. On 20 July, she was transferred to the Sokobanjska Rehabilitation Institute in Belgrade.
Investigation
Kecmanović surrendered to the police and was arrested; the police soon revealed his name to the public. The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade described him as a 13-year-old (born 30 July 2009) male seventh-grade student. At this age, he could not face criminal or misdemeanour charges due to the Juvenile Criminal Offenders and Criminal Protection of Juveniles Act setting the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 14; the case was referred to the Centre for Social Work. Within the school system, disciplinary action could result, at most, in moving the student to another school.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Kecmanović had been planning the event for a month, selecting specific classrooms to target first and compiling a list of students to prioritize in the shooting. The ministry also reported that he had received training at a shooting range alongside his father, who legally owned the pistols used in the incident. Confirmed by the Kecmanović Trial, Kosta fired 45 rounds inside the classroom; however, he also fired 21 in the hallway, for a total of 66 shots fired during the shooting. Described as a quiet and academically successful student, he had recently joined the class which he targeted. The motive is currently under investigation by authorities.
Kecmanović was placed under the care of the Child and Adolescent Neurology and Psychiatry Clinic, a psychiatric hospital in Belgrade. After the Military Medical Academy had administered a drug test, he was – according to his father's attorney Irina Borović – found not to have been under the influence of psychoactive drugs. The judgment to keep the minor in the mental health institution is subject to periodic revision – conditionally pending parental consent (not as a strict requirement). As of 8 May, his mother granted permission. On 1 June, following an extraordinary school inspection, the government reported no school bullying against him. The Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that Kecmanović is under 24-hour police surveillance and any possibility of his escape from the clinic is impossible.
A few days after the shooting, Kecmanović's phone was sent for forensic examination in order to obtain new information. Kecmanović asked the staff of the psychiatric clinic where he is detained to give him a phone in order to communicate with his close online friend Luka Lekić.
On 23 May, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade launched an investigation into the responsibility of the Partizan Practical Shooting Club, where Kecmanović allegedly practiced shooting with his father. The club's president Ratko Ivanović, however, claimed the younger Kecmanović had never practiced shooting at the club. Ivanović stated that while Kosta had joined his father on several occasions at the club, he had never entered the shooting range.
On 29 May, the Kecmanović's nanny was questioned by the police, where she told in detail everything she knew about his upbringing and habits. The school's psychologist and pedagogue were also questioned by the police, making in total five who were questioned, including family members and people who had or should have had close contact with him.
Forensics photos were taken at the scene, but under Serbian Law they cannot be released, primarily because doing so would violate strict child protection laws and severely risk triggering a dangerous wave of copycat violence known as the "Werther effect."
Kecmanović's parents
Kecmanović comes from a prominent Belgrade family; his father Vladimir is a well-known radiologist, and his mother Miljana is an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Belgrade.
Both parents were arrested shortly after the shooting; the father was detained and was questioned at a hearing on 5 May at the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade. During the hearing, he denied committing crimes. At the same time, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office proposed to the High Court to keep the father in custody. According to the prosecutors, he trained his son in the handling of firearms by taking him to a shooting range, which is an activity "clearly not appropriate for his age", and he kept the guns in an improperly secured locker. He is being investigated as a suspect concerning the criminal offence of "grave acts against public security". The court approved his detention for 30 days. His 30-day detention was re-extended twice; on 2 June and 30 June. On 28 July, his detention was re-extended for three months. As of October, the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Belgrade did not submit the ballistics medical expertise, which is crucial for making a decision on indictment against the father.
On 22 May, the prosecutor's office began collecting evidence against the mother, suspecting her of criminal child neglect. During her testimony, the mother provided a detailed account of Kecmanović's upbringing, his physical well-being, his interactions with peers, and their familial dynamics. According to her statement, the mother asserted that she did not observe any abnormal behaviour in her son on the morning of the shooting, except for his sluggishness during breakfast and while getting ready. She further claimed that she dropped off her daughter at school and left her son home to prepare himself. Approximately one hour later, the mother received news of the shooting at the school. Initially, she informed the authorities that she believed her son had been injured in the incident and promptly rushed to the school, where she subsequently learned the truth.