Shooter attacks Russian University, kills at least eight

At around 8:00am (06:00 GMT), a gunman opened fire at Perm State University in the Russian City of Perm and killed at least eight people and nineteen injured.

The University is located around 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) east of the capital, Moscow, in the Urals.

According to the BBC, the assailant walked on to the campus on Monday (today) morning and started shooting.

Officials said that students and teachers barricaded themselves inside the University building while others were seen jumping from windows.

A video broadcast on Russian TV and videos circulating on social media show students throwing belongings out of the windows before jumping to flee the shooter.

Russian Police say they wounded and detained the attacker.

According to the Investigative Committee that handles probes into major crimes, the gunman was identified as a student at the University.

Some reports say the gunman had written on social media that he was acting alone and had no political or religious motives.

A university teacher told the BBC that he saw students running from a building, and people jumping out of the second floor as he went to class.

“They jumped out in some horror, screaming. One of the students told me that it was a shooting. I heard pops, everyone began to scatter in different directions. I went to my students in the second building and continued to hear the pops,” he said.

There are about 10 buildings on the Perm University campus, and the security service immediately blocked all buildings and passages, he added.

Perm University posted a message on social networks urging students who were in the building to stay in the classrooms.

“There were about 60 people in the classroom. We closed the door and barricaded it with chairs,” one student, Semyon Karyakin, told Reuters news agency.

Earlier this year, a 19-year-old gunman opened fire in his old school in the central Russian city of Kazan, killing nine people.