Accused in Brandon sword attack pleads not guilty

BRANDON — A youth accused of severely injuring a student in a targeted sword attack at a Brandon high school detailed a “mass murder-suicide plan” months before the incident.

The plan mimicked a racially motivated school killing of three immigrants in Sweden.

The 17-year-old boy unexpectedly pleaded not guilty to nine charges on Tuesday during a scheduled pretrial hearing in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench.

The teen, who can’t be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is charged with three counts of attempted murder, aggravated assault, two counts of assault with a weapon, wearing a disguise with intent and two counts of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose in relation to the June 10, 2025 attack at Ecole secondaire Neelin High School.

In the months leading up to the attack, the accused wrote in notebooks, calling immigrants — specifically Black and Muslim people — “invaders” who he believed move to Canada despite hating the country and “do monstrous things to Canadians,” said an agreed statement of facts provided to the Brandon Sun on Thursday.

A 15-year-old victim, who is Black and whose family is from Nigeria, underwent a lengthy surgery at the Brandon hospital for his injuries. That included a severed fingertip and lacerations to both hands, his right shoulder, chest, abdomen, left thigh and left forearm.

The Sun has previously spoken with the victim and his family, but he can’t be identified due to a publication ban, Crown Prosecutor Hugh Crawley said in an email.

According to the agreed statement of facts, the accused — who was a 16-year-old Grade 10 student at the time — briefly spoke with a friend on the phone hours before the attack, saying he was going through with his plan.

The accused walked through the front entrance of the high school — that has about 380 enrolled students — shortly after 1 p.m., concealing a sword and a knife while wearing black pants and a black trench coat.

He went into a washroom and put on a black “plague” mask with a long beak-like nose that covered most of his face before he walked down the eastside hallway.

The Grade 10 victim, who was walking down the hallway, stopped to compliment the accused’s costume. They spoke for a few seconds until the boy pulled out his sword and stabbed him multiple times.

The victim tried preventing the attack by grabbing at the sword, which caused “catastrophic” injuries to his hands, the document said.

He followed the victim as he ran toward the front foyer into the administration office, passing principal Baseswa Nundu, who originally thought they were playing a joke.

Nundu was standing in the hall when the accused rounded the corner and raised the sword above his head and chased him.

Nundu ran into a nearby classroom and held the door closed while the accused stabbed the small glass window by the door, narrowly missing his eye.

The accused walked away from the classroom down the east hall and passed by several Caucasian students without reacting. He then chased another student down the hall with the sword held above his head.

A teacher stopped the accused while that student fled to the gym. The teacher was unharmed.

Several students called 911, as did Nundu, who also ordered a school lockdown.

The accused then went inside a classroom in the east hall and asked four students whether there were “any blacks” in there. When the students said “no,” he left to wander the halls, which began to empty, until Brandon police officers arrived.

When confronted by police, the teen refused to drop his sword and asked to be shot in the head. Police Tasered him twice before he dropped the weapon and was handcuffed.

The entire incident happened within a seven-minute span.

The boy was taken to the Brandon hospital, where he was medically cleared before being interviewed by detectives.

The accused admitted he wanted to “go out with a bang” and “get praise from certain people.”

He said he was inspired by Anton Lundin Pettersson, who dressed in black and armed himself with a sword in a racially motivated attack at a school in Trollhattan, Sweden. The man killed three immigrants before he was killed by police in 2015.

“The accused told police the only thing that went different from his plan was that he was not killed by officers,” the document said.

On June 11, 2025, police searched the accused’s home and seized a large black notebook, loose paper and a tablet from his bedroom. They photographed several cardboard weapons in the shape of guns and swords in his room.

The accused’s notebook, which had entries dating back to June 2022, celebrated Hitler, Nazis and his hatred toward Muslims, including threats to kill them.

Police found files on his tablet about various school massacres and images of swastikas.

He also had several manifestos written by white nationalists on his phone and a document he wrote that Crown attorneys plan to argue was the beginning of his own manifesto.

The teen has been in custody at the Manitoba Youth Centre in Winnipeg since his arrest and was transported to Brandon for his court appearance on Tuesday.

— Brandon Sun