School cancels shooting lessons

30 January 2004

AMSTERDAM — A school in Almelo has stopped a shooting course after a student complained to a newspaper in the wake of the shooting of a teacher at another school in The Hague earlier this month.

The Twente Plus College said on Friday that the lessons in the Olympic marksmanship sport would be cancelled with immediate effect, news agency Novum said.

The decision came after a student, who was not taking the course, sent an email to newspaper De Telegraaf complaining that the lessons continued after the murder of Hans van Wieren, deputy headmaster of the Terra College in The Hague on 13 January.

A Terra College student Murat D., aged 17, later surrendered to police and has reportedly admitted shooting Van Wieren. And on Friday, it was reported that two other boys and a girl had been arrested by police investigating the killing.

Also on Friday, the director of the Almelo school, Jaap Krikke, said the teacher in charge of the marksmanship lessons had decided to suspend the course for two weeks in the wake of the murder.

But the classes, made up of 10 students attending a firing range, continued for some reason.

Twente Plus also noted on Friday that several students had become upset in recent weeks about the handgun shooting module that had been part of the “sport op maat”, or made to measure sport, course for three years.

“These students feel that the shooting lessons should not have continued in the wake of the shooting at the Terra College in The Hague. The school also now thinks that the lessons have been cast in a different light by the incident. Therefore the decision has been taken to stop offering this option,” the school said.

Subject: Dutch news + school shooting