Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk linked a wave of knife attacks in schools to online challenges and extremist violence on Sunday (11), as law enforcement officers detained 117 people across the country. Officers carried out inspections across approximately 64,000 educational institutions after three separate knife incidents shook the Mazovian province within four days, leaving one school employee dead and several others injured.

The detentions targeted individuals caught carrying knives or other dangerous weapons on educational grounds, as well as suspects who made direct threats against schools and students. Tusk addressed the situation during a crisis meeting with national security agencies, stating that the violence did not originate from a centrally coordinated operation. “We are not dealing with any group organized on a big scale,” Tusk said, adding that investigators are observing uncoordinated acts fueled by digital culture. “These are very often spontaneous actions inspired by online activity.”

Donald Tusk highlights extreme-right ties and online glorification

Tusk emphasized that digital platforms have accelerated fascination with mass attackers and extremist ideologies among young people. “In the past years and months, we have noted – globally and in Poland – a rise in the fascination with violence,” the prime minister stated during the crisis briefing. Authorities noted that internet searches related to Nazi propaganda and notorious mass killers had risen sharply among suspects, with several suspects showing active ties to radical networks. “Some of the people detained are active in the ultraright environment,” Tusk said.

See also: Forest fire near Warsaw mobilizes 45 fire units and specialized aircraft against flames

The sequence of violence began on Wednesday, 7 October 2026, when a 19-year-old student attacked people with a knife at a vocational school in Ostrołęka, injuring multiple individuals. That same day, authorities in Sierpc detained a 17-year-old student who declared plans to carry out a violent act on school grounds. On Thursday, 8 October 2026, a 15-year-old former pupil wearing a helmet equipped with a camera entered a primary school in Leszczydół-Nowiny and fatally stabbed a 37-year-old female caretaker. A Polish court subsequently ordered a three-month preventive detention period for the 15-year-old suspect.

Mazovian schools face attacks as Parliament votes on digital controls

Panic spread across social media platforms following the killings, generating unfounded rumors of a coordinated challenge labeled as a violent Friday. In response, authorities deployed 24,000 police officers on Friday, 9 October 2026, to guard educational facilities and prevent potential disturbances. Despite the deployment, a third knife attack occurred on Saturday, 10 October 2026, around 12:30 CEST at the TEB Edukacja post-secondary institution in Warsaw, where a 21-year-old woman injured three people before police arrested her.

Check out: Sejm does not reverse presidential veto on cryptoactive regulation after intense vote

In the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish Parliament, lawmakers moved to curb digital incitement by approving legislation allowing emergency blocks on violent and unlawful web material by a vote of 242 to 61, with 136 abstentions. Historically, knife assaults inside schools have remained exceedingly rare across Poland, making the concentration of incidents in Mazovia an urgent priority for regional and national services.

Security services arrest suspect threatening Donald Tusk and defense minister

The security crisis escalated further on Sunday, 11 October 2026, when intelligence services convened an emergency meeting at 11:00 CEST after intercepting a specific email threat targeting top government officials. The message warned of an assassination plot directed against Donald Tusk and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesperson for the minister-coordinator of special services, stated that authorities treated the threat with the utmost urgency, saying, “We are treating this matter as deadly serious.”

A few hours later, Donald Tusk and Minister of the Interior and Administration Marcin Kierwiński announced that police forces tracked down and apprehended the individual responsible for the email threat. “The man threatening an attack has been detained,” Tusk stated. Polish security agencies have not released the identity of the detained suspect as the investigation into the threats and school incidents continues.