A retrial in Serbia has concluded with the parents of a 13-year-old boy who carried out a mass shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school in Belgrade receiving prison sentences. The original verdict, which had drawn public outcry, was overturned on appeal. The father, Vladimir Kecmanović, was sentenced to 14 years and six months imprisonment for child neglect and illegal possession of weapons. The mother, Miljana Kecmanović, received a three-year sentence for child neglect. The case has reignited debates about parental responsibility and gun control in a country still reeling from the tragedy.
The shooting, which occurred on 3 May 2023, claimed the lives of nine children and a security guard. It was one of two mass shootings in Serbia within 48 hours, triggering nationwide protests and promises of stricter gun laws. The minor, who cannot be named due to his age, was declared not criminally responsible due to mental incompetence and placed in a psychiatric institution.
The retrial was ordered after the initial sentences were deemed too lenient. The prosecution argued the parents bore direct responsibility: the father had taught his son to shoot and stored firearms carelessly, while the mother failed to recognise warning signs. The court agreed, stating the parents' neglect created the conditions for the tragedy.
This verdict arrives amid a broader societal reckoning with violence in Serbia. Gun ownership is deeply ingrained in the culture, partly due to wartime legacies. The country has an estimated 765,000 registered firearms, with an unknown number of illegal ones. While this case spotlights individual culpability, it also raises questions about the collective failure to protect children from armed violence.
From a scientific perspective, such tragedies are complex systems failures. Like a cascading load in a power grid, individual actions accumulate into catastrophic outcomes. The parents' negligence, the boy's mental state, the easy access to weapons, and societal glorification of firearms all contributed. Addressing any single component without the others reduces resilience but does not prevent collapse.
The challenge for Serbia is to translate this legal outcome into structural reform. Stricter gun laws have been passed but enforcement remains weak. Mental health support for minors is underfunded. And the cultural narrative that equates manhood with gun ownership persists.
For the families of the victims, the verdict offers some measure of justice. But it does not restore lives. The Kecmanović sentencing is a necessary but insufficient step in a long journey toward safety. The data is clear: when children have unsupervised access to firearms, risk multiplies exponentially. Serbia now has a chance to learn from this tragedy, but the learning curve is steep. The world will be watching.
