Police in northern Poland detained a 13-year-old boy early on Monday after receiving information that he was allegedly planning an attack at the school he attends in Wąbrzeźno County. Officers found a bayonet in a backpack prepared for school and also seized a cleaver from his home.
Kujawsko-Pomorskie regional police said officers in Wąbrzeźno received the warning overnight through the International Police Cooperation Bureau at Poland’s National Police Headquarters.
Police established the teenager’s address and entered the home at around 6 a.m. on 28 September, before he had left for school. He was there with his father.
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Officers searched the property and found the bayonet in his school backpack. RMF FM reported that the weapon measured close to 30 centimetres. Police also secured a cleaver elsewhere in the home.
The intervention took place before any attack occurred. Police have not publicly identified the school or disclosed who, if anyone, was allegedly intended as a specific target.
The regional force said the information supplied to officers indicated that the teenager was planning an attack at the school he attends in Wąbrzeźno County, in Poland’s Kujawsko-Pomorskie province.
RMF FM reported that the original warning came from foreign partners and concerned a possible attack involving knives. The public police statement does not identify the foreign service involved or explain how the information was initially obtained.
Officers from the cybercrime department of the Provincial Police Headquarters in Bydgoszcz have also joined the investigation, while other services have been informed.
RMF FM additionally reported, citing information obtained by its journalist, that the teenager had participated in online forums containing fascist and extremist material. That detail has not been publicly confirmed by police and should therefore be treated as attributed media reporting rather than an established finding.
Police did say that information passed to investigators also indicated that the teenager had previously killed several cats. Further circumstances surrounding that allegation have not been publicly explained by the force.
The boy was questioned in the presence of a parent. Police said the collected material would be passed to a family court, which will determine what happens next.
Because the suspect is 13, the case falls primarily under Poland’s separate legal system for minors rather than the ordinary rules applied to adult defendants.
The current consolidated text of Poland’s Act on Support and Rehabilitation of Minors provides for family-court proceedings concerning punishable acts committed by minors from the age of 13. The system allows courts to impose educational, therapeutic and corrective measures depending on the circumstances of the case and the individual child.
The Ministry of Justice has also stressed that juvenile proceedings are distinct from ordinary criminal punishment and are designed primarily around education and rehabilitation.
No court decision has yet been announced, and police have not publicly disclosed the precise legal classification being considered in the case.
Authorities have likewise not publicly established a motive, confirmed how advanced any alleged preparations were beyond the weapons recovered, or said whether investigators believe any other person was involved.
The case therefore remains at an early stage. What has been confirmed is that police acted on an international warning before the teenager reached school, recovered two bladed weapons and have referred the matter into Poland’s juvenile justice system.
