What do the police say?
On the night of the attack, Swedish police were quick to quash speculation that this was a terror attack mounted by a far-right, Islamic, or other type of extremist.
"There is currently nothing in the investigation to suggest that the perpetrator was acting under any ideological motivation," police spokesperson Fredrik Svedemyr said.
On Wednesday, local police chief Roberto Eid Forest qualified this, describing Andersson as "a motivated perpetrator".
But at a press conference on Thursday morning, the officer leading the investigation, Anna Bergqvist, was again reluctant to speculate.
"What is the motive for this act? That's something we're looking at. We have seen all the film footage recorded, both externally and internally at the school. We are holding witness interviews with people with connections to the perpetrator to understand 'why did this happen?' and we don't yet have an answer."
It may take investigators weeks to establish Andersson's motive. It's also possible they will never be fully able to explain his actions.
Bergqvist called for "patience" but the public, not to mention the families of the victims, are seeking answers and explanations.
What about politicians?
In his first address to the nation after the atrocity, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson declared, "let us not speculate" about the motive, saying that this information would come out in good time.
So far, opposition parties have respected this request.
Nonetheless, Andersson's background and actions on the day of the shooting have been the focus of much attention ever since he was named by Swedish media as the gunman.
Educational failure
Andersson struggled to achieve passing grades throughout his school career, with the Expressen newspaper reporting that he finished elementary school without a passing grade in a single subject.
Then, when he moved on to upper secondary school, he received mixed grades, with a välgodkänd, or a "good pass" in aesthetic subjects (which mixes art, music and textiles), and also in history and psychology. He failed, however, in seven other subjects.
According to the Aftonbladet newspaper, later in life, he was a student at Campus Risbergska, studying maths at upper secondary level in 2021, but dropping out before completing the first course.
Bergqvist mentioned this when discussing possible motives at Thursday's press conference.
"What we can say is that there is information to suggest that he was connected to the school in some way, that he may have gone to the school earlier," she said.
This, she said, was something the police needed to "look into more deeply".
'Fight with social services'
The Aftonbladet newspaper reported on Wednesday that one of the police's theories was that the attack was targeted at the local social services.
The newspaper claimed that Andersson's benefits had recently been cut because the Swedish Public Employment Service had judged that he was not making enough effort to find a job.
"He had had a fight with social services," a source told the newspaper.
According to the source, several employees from the social services were unaccounted for.
It's not clear, however, what connection the Social Services department in Örebro has with Campus Risbergska, as the main office, at least, is in another part of town.
Some of the victims were of immigrant origin
All four of the victims whose nationalities have so far been confirmed in the media had an immigrant background: two from Syria, one from Iran, and one from Bosnia.
Campus Risbergska primarily taught courses where students tend to have an immigration background, such as Swedish for Immigrants, vocational training for health and care workers, and primary and secondary level classes for adults.
The broadcaster TV4 published a story on Wednesday night, based on a recording made by someone hiding from the attacker. Their sound technicians isolated a voice that they concluded was shouting Ni ska bort från Europa, or “You have to leave Europe”.
At the press conference Bergqvist said that police had collected and were analysing recordings made during the attack.
"We have received films where we are listening to the sound clips to try and determine what is being said. Is this something which could lead us to the right understanding of the motive?'"
Attackers with racist, anti-immigrant, or anti-Islamic motives have historically been active within extremist online groups. Police have said that they have yet to find evidence of this on electronic devices used by Andersson.
Several commentators have, however, questioned the reluctance of both police and politicians to consider this a racist attack.
Police, they point out, have downplayed ideological motives in the past, for example after the knife attack at the Almedalen political festival in 2022, only for such motives to come to light later on.
"When the police tone down the ideological motive, I and many others wonder what they actually mean," wrote Zina Al-Dewany in Aftonbladet. "The perpetrator is a white, Swedish man. His target is a school where many are studying Swedish for Immigrants."
Her colleague Karin Pettersson argued that "the place is political, whatever the perpetrator's motive".
In the Sydsvenskan newspaper, the writer Nathan Hamelberg contrasted the reluctance to consider an ideological motive in this case with the rapidity with which political motives have been ascribed to attackers with an immigrant or Muslim background, such as Rakhmat Akilov, who drove a stolen truck down Drottninggatan, Stockholm's main shopping street, in 2017.
"No one talks about Rakhmat Akilov as a lone madman, regardless of the extent to which he acted alone and how mad he actually was, his terror attack was immediately connected to a jihadi ideology," he said.
Those calls by Swedish investigators for "patience" are appearing to go unheeded.
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