Police: Man kills child at Dutch primary school

updated 11:38 a.m. ET Dec. 1, 2006

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A man wearing a long coat with a hood killed an 8-year-old boy in a Dutch primary school corridor Friday. Police said they arrested a 22-year-old suspect and were questioning him.

The incident happened around 11:15 a.m. at the Klim-Op School in the town of Hoogerheide, 90 miles south of Amsterdam.

After teachers discovered the child and called police, "my colleagues found the lifeless body of a boy," said police spokesman Fred Stegman. He identified the victim as Jesse Dingemans and said he had "serious injuries to the throat area."

He gave no more details of exactly how the child was killed or what the motive might have been. Detectives combing the school for evidence had found no weapon, he said.

Local media reported that the boy was the son of a local bank manager.

"As far as is clear to me at the moment, there is no family relationship between the victim and his killer," Stegman added.

Early reports said the child's throat had been slashed, but Stegman refused to confirm the reports.

The identity of the suspect, who was arrested without struggle on a nearby street less than an hour after the killing, was not released.

‘Everyone is terribly upset at the school’
Police said Jesse's classmates did not witness the slaying. They had been working elsewhere in the school and the victim apparently was killed when he returned to his classroom to fetch something.

"It does not appear that many children witnessed the incident," another police spokesman, Willem van Hooijdonk, said.

All the pupils were sent home after the killing and a crisis center was established at the town hall in nearby Woensdrecht.

"Everyone is terribly upset at the school," Van Hooijdonk said.

Few schools have strict security measures in place, in part because killings are extremely rare. The last case was in 2004, when a student shot his economics teacher in the head in a crowded cafeteria.

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