A girl lights a candle in memory of the victims of Wednesday's attack on a vocational college in Kerch, Crimea, at the memorial stone with the word Kerch in the Alexander Garden near the Kremlin, Moscow,... (Associated Press) 
 
 A girl lights a candle in memory of the victims of Wednesday's attack on a vocational college in Kerch, Crimea, at the memorial stone with the word Kerch in the Alexander Garden near the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018. A top official in Crimea says authorities are searching for a possible... (Associated Press) 
 
 MOSCOW (AP) — While Crimean authorities searched for clues that might help explain why a teenager gunned down 20 people at his vocational school before killing himself, the stunned city of Kerch prepared to say farewell to the victims. 
 
 Thousands of residents were expected to attend the funerals of most of the victims Friday. The burials are taking place in mainland Russia, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. 
 
 Little information has emerged about the 18-year-old gunman, Vladislav Roslyakov. Authorities said they were investigating if he had an accomplice in Wednesday's shotgun massacre at Kerch Polytechnic College. 
 
 Teachers and classmates have described him as a shy person with few friends. A computer taken from the home where Roslyakov lived with his parents revealed little, a Crimean official said Thursday. 
 
 "When they did a search and saw the computer, all information, messages and such had been deleted," Crimean human rights ombudswoman Lyudmila Lubina was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Tass. 
 
 Roslyakov was initially described as the only person involved in the carnage at the school. But Sergei Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, told Russian news agencies Thursday it's still possible the student had help. 
 
 "The point is to find out who was coaching him for this crime," Aksyonov said. "He was acting on his own here, we know that. But this scoundrel could not have prepared this attack on his own, in my opinion, and according to my colleagues." 
 
 Residents brought flowers and toys to a makeshift memorial outside the school on Thursday morning. Many were in tears, struggling to speak. 
 
 The Kerch attack was by far the deadliest carried out by a student in Russia, raising questions about school security. The vocational school had a front desk, but no security guards. Russia's National Guard said Thursday it has now deployed officers and riot police to all schools and colleges in Kerch. 
 
 Wednesday's violence also was the deadliest school attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan attack by Chechen separatists, which left 333 people dead, many of them children, during a three-day siege. Hundreds of others were wounded. 
 
 As the day wore on Thursday, neither Russian investigators nor other authorities followed up on Aksyonov's comments hinting at a wider attack plot. President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, portrayed the mass shooting in Kerch as a "result of globalization" — forces that were exporting bad practices into Russia. 
 
 Speaking at an international policy conference, Putin compared Roslyakov's assault to the numerous school shootings in the United States. In the past few years, authorities have said several school attacks in Russia allegedly were inspired by gun violence in the U.S. 
 
 Putin said that in his view, teenagers getting guns and going on shooting rampages meant adults had failed to offer them alternatives to violence. 
 
 "Young people with a fragile mental state are creating false heroes for themselves," he said. "That means that all of us, not only in Russia, but in the world on the whole, are reacting poorly to the fast-changing realities." 
 
 Russia has fairly strict gun legislation. Civilians can own only hunting rifles and smoothbore shotguns and must undergo significant background checks. Roslyakov had only recently received a permit to own a shotgun and had bought 150 cartridges just a few days ago, according to local officials. 
 
 Asked about possible plans to further restrict gun ownership in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the government would wait for the results of the Kerch investigation. 
 
 Since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, Russian authorities repeatedly warned of a terrorism threat from unnamed Ukrainian nationalists and ethnic Tatars, an indigenous Crimean people. But despite acts of public defiance and rallies, both groups haven't engaged in any violent activities in Crimea. 
 
 The death toll in Kerch, excluding Roslyakov, climbed Thursday to 20 after one of the wounded died in a hospital, according to Russian news agency Tass. 
 
 Dozens of people remained hospitalized in Kerch, and at least 10 with severe injuries were being airlifted to top Russian hospitals for surgery, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said. 
 
 Most victims died from gunshot wounds, authorities said. Many others had wounds from an improvised explosive device that went off packed with shrapnel. Skvortsova said some victims had their legs or feet blown off. 
 
 "The kids' muscles have been 'minced' with small metal objects," Skvortsova said. "In those who have their organs ripped apart, we are finding metal balls in kidneys, intestines, in blood vessels. That is how powerful the blast was." 
 
 Taisiya Roslyakova, the grandmother of the young man said to have carried out the attack, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily Thursday that her grandson was a kind boy who always helped her with chores, unlike his father. 
 
 She said Roslyakov did not have many friends and spent all his time indoors playing computer games. She said she last saw him a week ago when he stopped by and asked if he could take all the family photo albums. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Vladimir Isachenkov and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed. ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption Shocked mourners gathered at a makeshift shrine at the college 
 
 The deadly gun and bomb attack on a college in Crimea "appears to be a result of globalisation", Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. 
 
 "On social media, on the internet, we see the creation of entire communities. Everything started with the tragic events in schools in the US," he said. 
 
 Fifteen students and five teachers were killed in Wednesday's attack on the technical college in Kerch. 
 
 Officials named the killer as Vladislav Roslyakov, 18, who took his own life. 
 
 He was a fourth-year student at the college in the city in Crimea - the southern peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. 
 
 'People have lost limbs' 
 
 On Wednesday, a huge nail-bomb blast ripped through the college's cafeteria, before the killer stormed through the building, shooting people at close range with a pump-action hunting rifle. 
 
 Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said the explosion from a home-made device had showered people with shrapnel. 
 
 "Some victims' internal organs were ruptured, we're finding washers and ballbearings in their livers, intestines, blood vessels," she said. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Emergency crews respond to the attack 
 
 "Limbs have been amputated - people have lost feet and shins," she said. 
 
 Some of the critically injured were being transferred to hospitals as far away as Moscow. 
 
 The authorities in Crimea have declared three days of mourning. A prayer service was held for the victims at a makeshift shrine near the college. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Prayers were said for the victims near the college in Kerch 
 
 The rampage is the deadliest attack to have taken place in Crimea since the Russian annexation. 
 
 That Russian intervention - condemned by many Western powers - marked the start of a conflict pitting Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine against Ukrainian government forces. 
 
 What happened at the college? 
 
 The perpetrator is said to have run from room to room as he fired. Minutes earlier he had left a rucksack containing the nail-bomb in the cafeteria on the ground floor and detonated it remotely, Russian Channel One TV reported. 
 
 Photos later emerged in Russian media purportedly showing his body in the college library. 
 
 The TV report described a scene of devastation and mass panic after the blast. It said doors and windows were shattered in the entrance hall and on the first floor, above the cafeteria. Some students leapt out of the building from a height of 5m (16ft 5in). 
 
 Investigators later said they had found a second explosive device among the gunman's possessions and that it had been disarmed. He was also reported to have several packs of bullets and home-made petrol bombs. 
 
 BBC Russian spoke to witnesses, including Igor Zakharevsky. "I was at the epicentre of the first explosion, at the entrance, near the buffet," he said. 
 
 "I was in complete shock and one of my classmates started pulling me away. Then I heard several shots at intervals of two or three seconds. After a while there was another explosion." 
 
 Marina, an 18-year-old student at the college, said there was "a massive explosion, the windows began to rattle and everyone started screaming". 
 
 "We bolted out of the classroom and ran. There was complete pandemonium in the corridor," she said. "I saw a girl lying near the wall in an unnatural position, others lying on the floor covered in blood. Shots were being fired every five or six seconds. 
 
 The incident was first described as a "terrorist act", but Russia's investigative committee later reclassified it as "mass murder". 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Fresh flowers for Kerch at Moscow's World War Two Hero Cities memorial 
 
 Spate of attacks 
 
 By Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow 
 
 Until now, if you had told people in Crimea there had been a mass school shooting, most would have thought you were talking about the United States. Now all that has changed. 
 
 The shooting spree in the Kerch Polytechnic has left the peninsula, annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, in shock. But should it come as such a surprise? 
 
 There have been five attacks in schools in Russia this year where a number of children were injured. 
 
 In Kerch, questions are already being asked: how did Vladislav Roslyakov manage to obtain a licence for a hunting weapon? And how was he able to launch such a deadly attack on his college? 
 
 What do we know about the alleged gunman? 
 
 His precise motives remain unclear. But there are suggestions the fourth-year student had developed a hostile attitude to the college. 
 
 Russia's RBC TV interviewed a friend who said Roslyakov "hated the technical school very much" and had vowed "revenge" on his teachers. 
 
 Image copyright PA Image caption Russian soldiers were deployed outside the school 
 
 It has emerged that he obtained a gun licence when he was 17. His parents are divorced. 
 
 Classmates said Roslyakov was very reserved and had long ago stopped using social networks. 
 
 College teacher Olga Mikhailichenko said he was "a hard-working student, very quiet". A neighbour was quoted as saying "he had no friends". 
 
 The college prepares students for engineering jobs and is reportedly well-equipped. But some students spoke of lax security there. ||||| In this image made from video, showing the scene as emergency services load an injured person onto a truck, in Kerch, Crimea, Wednesday Oct. 17, 2018. An explosive device has killed several people and... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this image made from video, showing the scene as emergency services load an injured person onto a truck, in Kerch, Crimea, Wednesday Oct. 17, 2018. An explosive device has killed several people and injured at least 50 others at a vocational college in Crimea Wednesday in what Russian officials have... (Associated Press) 
 
 MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian official said a student attacked a vocational college Wednesday in Crimea, a rampage that killed 17 other students and left more than 40 people wounded, before killing himself. 
 
 The comments from Sergei Aksyonov, the regional leader in Crimea, were the latest in a series of shifting explanations by Russian officials as to what exactly happened at Kerch Polytechnic College in the Black Sea city of Kerch. 
 
 Russian officials at first reported a gas explosion, then said an explosive device ripped through the college canteen in a suspected terrorist attack. But witnesses reported that at least some victims were killed in an attack by a gunman or gunmen. 
 
 Aksyonov said on television that the student, a local man acting alone, killed himself after the attack. 
 
 Russia's Investigative Committee, the nation's top investigative agency, identified the attacker as Vladislav Roslyakov, 18. It said he was caught on security cameras entering the college with a rifle and firing at students. 
 
 The committee said all the victims died of gunshot wounds, contrasting with the previous statements by other officials saying they were injured in an explosion. 
 
 Reflecting the official confusion, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the victims were killed by an explosion just as the Investigative Committee was announcing they were fatally shot. 
 
 Putin deplored the attack as a "tragic event" and offered condolences to the victims' families at a news conference in Sochi, where he had talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. 
 
 After the attack, local officials declared a state of emergency on the Black Sea peninsula that they had annexed from Ukraine in 2014. They also beefed up security at a new 19-kilometer (11.8-mile) bridge that links the peninsula with Russia that opened earlier this year. 
 
 Military units were deployed around the college. 
 
 The Investigative Committee initially said an explosive device that went off at the college's canteen was rigged with shrapnel. 
 
 Sergei Melikov, a deputy chief of the Russian National Guard, said the device was homemade. Explosives experts inspected the college building for other possible bombs, according to Anti-Terrorism Committee spokesman Andrei Przhezdomsky. 
 
 Witnesses did not speak of an explosion but said one or more armed men attacked the school. 
 
 The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper quoted student Semyon Gavrilov as saying he fell asleep during a lecture and woke up to the sound of shooting. He said he looked out and saw a young man with a rifle shooting at people. 
 
 "I locked the door, hoping he wouldn't hear me," the paper quoted Gavrilov as saying. 
 
 He said police arrived about 10 minutes later to evacuate people from the college and he saw dead bodies on the floor and charred walls. 
 
 Another student, Yuri Kerpek, told the state RIA Novosti news agency that the shooting went on for about 15 minutes. 
 
 Olga Grebennikova, director of the vocational college, told KerchNet TV that men armed with automatic rifles burst into the college and "killed everyone they saw." Grebennikova, who said she had left the grounds shortly before the attack occurred, said students and staff were among victims. 
 
 Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova headed to the area to help coordinate assistance to the wounded and helicopters carrying emergency medical teams flew to the area. 
 
 Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine triggered Western sanctions. Russia has also supported separatists fighting the Ukrainian government in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that has left at least 10,000 people dead since 2014. 
 
 Over the past few years, Russian security agencies have arrested several Ukrainians accused of plotting terror attacks in Crimea, but no attacks have occurred.
– After Wednesday's massacre at a vocational school in Crimea, Russians are looking for answers—and some of them are looking toward the West. Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the gun and bomb attack carried out by a student in Kerch "appears to be a result of globalization," the BBC reports. "On social media, on the Internet, we see the creation of entire communities," he said. "Everything started with the tragic events in schools in the US." State-funded broadcaster RT has described the attack as having a "shocking resemblance" to the 1999 Columbine mass shooting, with the attackers in both cases setting off explosives in cafeterias, shooting fellow students, and killing themselves in school libraries. Political analyst Sergey Mikheyev blamed the attack on "Western subculture," CNN reports, which "builds its matrix on the cult of violence," he said on state television. "The one who has a weapon in his hands is right. This is a purely American approach to the matter." The death toll in the Kerch attack reached 20—15 students and five teachers—after one of the injured died Thursday, the AP reports. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova says most victims died from gunshot wounds, but the shrapnel-packed explosive device caused many horrific injuries, with some victims losing their legs or feet. Few details have been released on attacker Vladislav Roslyakov, an 18-year-old student at the school. (Putin said Thursday that Russians killed in a nuclear strike will "go to heaven" as martyrs.)