Mayor visits Rotterdam school where teen girl was killed

Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb of Rotterdam visited the Designcollege on Wednesday. He attended a meeting for pupils about the death of 16-year-old Humeyra Oz, who was shot at the school on Tuesday. The police, Victim Support and Turkish consul Aytac Yilmaz also attended the meeting, NU.nl reports.

After his visit, Aboutaleb said that he talked with the pupils for about an hour. He said that the school set up a memorial space with a memorial tree, where students can write a message on a heart and hang it on the tree. The mayor himself wrote "madness, why", according to the newspaper. "There was a nice atmosphere", the mayor said. He told the pupils that they could email him with any questions they have.

The mayor asked questions about what Humeyra's last school day looked like. He did not want to say anything about the case, in the interest of the investigation. He did, however, emphasize that Rotterdam is doing a great deal to reduce the illegal possession of weapons. That is why so many preventative searches are done in the city, he said.

The 16-year-old girl was gunned down at around 1:00 p.m. in the school's indoor bicycle storage. A 31-year-old man was arrested a short time later. NOS identifies him as Bekir E. Various Dutch media sources report that E. was Humeyra's ex-boyfriend, and that the two's Turkish families knew each other. The Public Prosecutor confirmed that the suspect has a criminal record, but did not say for what crime he was convicted. 

E. will be in custody until at least Friday, when he will likely be arraigned. The magistrate will then decide whether or not to keep the man in pre-trail custody.