BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - A 13-year-old Spanish boy armed with a crossbow and a machete killed a substitute teacher and wounded four other people at his school in Barcelona on Monday.
The unidentified boy was detained by police as a suspect in the attack that also saw two other teachers and two students injured. Authorities said the boy, who was undergoing a psychiatric examination, will not face criminal charges because he is under the age of 14.
The attack, which took place just after 9.30 a.m., sowed terror in the high school in a working class neighborhood of Spain's second-largest city.
"We were just starting the class and suddenly we heard screams," said student Gemma Jarque. "So we shut ourselves inside our classroom in order to be safe."
A regional police spokeswoman said the boy had a crossbow and a machete. However, she was unable to say which weapon caused the man's death.
An autopsy was being performed to determine the teacher's cause of death. Results are not expected for several days.
Authorities did not disclose details of how the attack played out. But Jarque said she and others hid in her classroom after hearing the screams, and left along with other students only after a fire alarm sounded.
The two wounded students and one of the injured teachers were taken to Barcelona hospitals for treatment while the other injured teacher was treated at the scene and did not need hospitalization.
Parents and students gathered and hugged each other in stunned silence outside the school for students ages 12-16. The teacher killed was a substitute who had worked at the school for about a week.
Though children below 14 are not held legally responsible for crimes and cannot be jailed or placed in juvenile detention centers, they can be sent to mental health institutions, said a spokesman for Spain's Justice Ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity because of ministry policy.