High school student in Italy wounds teacher with hunting knife, waves toy gun in class

A student wounded his teacher with a hunting knife and brandished what turned out to be a toy gun at classmates in a high school in a Milan suburb on Monday, police said.

Classmates later recounted that the 16-year-old suddenly stood up shortly after classes began in the town of Abbiategrasso and attacked the teacher from behind on an arm and on her head, the Italian news agency ANSA said. When the attacker waved a gun at his classmates, the students fled the room, reports said.

Police told state TV that when they entered the room, the teen was sitting on the floor with no one else in the classroom and offered no resistance. The bloody knife and the gun were found resting on a notebook on a desk, according to photos released by police.

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The teacher, 51, lost a lot of blood and was admitted to a hospital, also suffering from shock, news reports said. The student was taken to a hospital psychiatric department and had what apparently were self-inflicted injuries, the police said.

Principal Michele Raffaeli told reporters outside the school that the student had been having academic problems and his parents had been summoned to a meeting with school authorities, scheduled for Tuesday.

Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara visited the wounded teacher in hospital.

"The teacher had done her work in an exemplary way for the boy, who had already had several issues,'' the minister said in a video on Facebook.

Valditara added: “We must say 'enough' to aggression so that schools can be safe places and, at the same time, reflect on introducing (the figure of) a psychologist” in schools.