A Moscow city court has ordered that a 10th-grade student suspected of a deadly school shooting be placed in pretrial detention, after his parents distanced themselves from the teenager's defense, a news report said.
"The parents have essentially removed themselves from his defense, they are unreachable, they are not answering calls to their cell phones," Judge Natalya Mushnikova said in her Tuesday ruling, RAPSI reported.
On Monday, the boy entered into a school in northeast Moscow with two rifles, at least one of which belonged to his father, RIA Novosti reported citing investigators.
Students said that after the teenager shot their teacher and took them hostage, the shooter's father came to school and stood in front of the hostages to protect them, before talking his son into putting down the gun, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported.
Earlier, the shooter's mother and grandmother also tried to plea with the shooter over the phone, while he held his schoolmates at gunpoint, students said.
The Basmanny District Court agreed to the investigators' request to keep the suspected shooter in custody through April 3.
The teenager — whom earlier news reports identified as Sergei Gordeyev, aged 15 — is accused of killing a teacher and a police officer, and taking students hostage at the school.
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