Following a second shooting spree within a week, the Serbian president announced a harsh crackdown on guns.
Serbian police have arrested the 21-year-old suspect in a shooting that killed eight people, including an off-duty police officer, and injured another 14.
In a statement, police said that the man, identified by initials UB, was arrested early Friday after a drive-by shooting spree that began in the village of Dubona near Mladenovac, and then continued in Malo Orašje and Šepšin.
The arrest followed an all-night manhunt by hundreds of police officers, who sealed off the area south of Belgrade where the shooting took place late Thursday.
Since then, police have raided the second shooter's weekend home and found a large collection of additional weapons.
The shooting came a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade.
"For the second time in 48 hours, we have to address the public with difficult news," Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić told journalists in Belgrade. "This repeated criminal act and indiscriminate shooting of people randomly standing in front of their doors, after the attack on our children, is an attack on our entire country," he continued.
Vučić announced the government would take new measures to crack down on the availability of weapons in the country and establish strict controls on those who have licenses to possess them.
"Just like many other countries faced with similar situations, we have to find the strength in these difficult times for unpopular but brave measures that lead to concrete results," said Vučić.
Until Wednesday's incident, a single police officer would be responsible for checking up on 2 or 3 schools. In the next couple of months, hundreds of new police officers will be hired and thousands more will be transferred from other positions to monitor schools.
"Besides the guards, there will now be at least one police officer at every school almost all the time," Vučić explained.
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