A 15-year-old student opened fire with a shotgun outside a high school in the western province of Manisa in Türkiye early Sept. 22, wounding 11 classmates in an attack he attributed to severe peer bullying.
The ninth-grade student, identified by the initials H.O., shot his peers near İnci Üzmez Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School in the Turgutlu district. Three victims remain in critical condition, while medical staff have discharged one person. Education officials suspended classes at the facility for one day following the morning attack.
Police detained eight individuals following the incident, including the suspected shooter, his mother, his father, his grandfather and four other suspects. The pump-action shotgun used in the attack was registered to the boy’s grandmother. The Turgutlu Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is conducting a comprehensive investigation into the assault while the suspect’s interrogation continues.
The suspect said during his initial police interrogation the shooting stemmed from a romantic dispute and peer bullying rather than terrorism, according to a report by daily Sözcü journalist Sultan Uçar. Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi announced the ministry dispatched two civil inspectors and two police inspectors to the province to investigate.
The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) imposed a broadcast ban on the shooting. Armed violence outside school grounds remains exceptionally rare in Türkiye, although law enforcement continuously conducts operations to seize unregistered hunting rifles and combat juvenile crime across the country.
