Woman sentenced to three years, two months in prison for school-shooting plot

THE DISTRICT COURT of Ostrobothnia on Wednesday convicted Evita Enni Bettiina Kolmonen to three years and two months in prison over an abandoned school-shooting plan.

The woman was ordered to have engaged in a particularly serious and dangerous act, motivated by her long-standing and powerful hatred toward humans and society, and to have come extremely close to carrying out her plan against completely innocent children.

She was also ruled to have taken deliberate action to obtain a firearm as part of her plan and driven to the school at a time when as many pupils as possible were present. Her attack, the court highlighted, would have been completely unexpected at a location where children were obliged to be and had no chance to prepare for it.

The attack plan caused widespread fear and anxiety, according to the District Court of Ostrobothnia.

Kolmonen was found guilty of preparation of an aggravated offense against life and health and firearms offense, although the latter offense had only a minor impact on sentencing, according to Helsingin Sanomat. She was also stripped of her military rank and ordered to relinquish her handgun.

The District Court of Ostrobothnia weighed up the credibility of her insistence that she has completely abandoned the criminal plot but ultimately ruled that there was no evidence to suggest she has completely given up on a plot she had spent years devising. It also argued that, given the amount of time she had dedicated to preparing, it is unlikely that her views changed suddenly and permanently at the main entrance of the school.

The offense was ruled to have begun when the woman first took part in firearm training, in the autumn of 2021.

If her social media followers had not tipped off police about her suspicious posts and police had not interfered, she could have resumed the execution at a later time, the court ruled. Also a call she received from a man she cared for may have influenced her decision-making, although ultimately only she herself knows why she decided not to execute the plan.

The defendant recounted in court that she walked back to her car from the entrance of the school after seeing how young the pupils inside the school were, insisting that she could not have carried out such an act.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT