Shunevich: Teacher was injured by knife

Talking to reporters on May 25, Interior Minister Ihar Shunevich commented on the incident at School No74 in Minsk, where the Russian language teacher had been injured by a student. Accordiing to the minister, there is international practice of responding to such incidents - school's internal security and the observance of teachers' safety. However, there is no such system in Belarus.

The Minister also pointed out that this is not a typical case for Belarus, but since the precedent has been established, law enforcement officers will be thinking about how to protect teachers. One of these steps can be detection of dangerous items like the knife that the student had used to injure the teacher.

- Pass control at school. Of course, I realize that the knife he carried inside the school was difficult to detect.
- There was a knife?
- Yes, a knife, a knife.
- But in any case, there should be barriers to be made for this. Or mechanisms for monitoring student behavior.
- Will the MIA initiate something?
- We will discuss this case with the Minister of Education and, of course, we will offer some measures. But in general, it is rather not a police problem, but social and educational one. But, of course, we have to participate.
- And what kind of knife was there?
- It had a handle and a sharp blade. I'm telling you, the handle, the blade, is the knife ,made out of it? What kind of knife was it? Well, the child had a knife. Do you want a colorful image? Machete or something like that? No, nothing like it.

He added that the problem should be dealt with primarily by social and psychological services of educational institutions. Shunevich considers it important to work to identify students who are prone to this behavior.