At 10:30 that morning, Bekmansurov ordered a taxi. He carried a bag containing the shotgun, ammunition, and a military-style helmet. The driver noticed his mask and made a joke about it. After arriving near campus, Bekmansurov hid beside a building on Genkelya Street, removed his jacket to reveal two bandoliers, and put on the helmet. At 11:27, he emerged and fired his first shot through the windshield of an approaching car, striking the driver. He then ran toward the university checkpoint, shooting a Russian Railways employee and several students outside. In the courtyard he fired indiscriminately, killing 19-year-old physics student Yaroslav Aramelev. He continued through buildings, firing at people fleeing and those trapped inside. Of 131 rounds he carried, he fired 37.

Six people died that morning. Yaroslav Aramelev, 19, a physics student, was killed first in the courtyard. Margarita Engaus, 66, had come to the university with her grandson for an excursion. Ksenia Samchenko, 18, and Ekaterina Shakirova, 19, were both geography students killed together. Anna Aigeldina, 24, a former student, had returned that day to collect her master's degree diploma. Alexandra Mokhova, 20, a student of mechanics and mathematics, was the last to die. Forty-seven others were injured, 23 of them by gunfire. Each of these people had arrived at the university that Monday expecting an ordinary day. The youngest victim was eighteen. The oldest was sixty-six.

The shooting came just four months after a gunman killed nine people at a school in Kazan. That earlier attack had prompted legislation raising the legal age to purchase firearms from 18 to 21, but the new law had not yet taken effect. Perm State University had no panic button at the time -- only a single rotary dial telephone to alert authorities. The security guard was chased from his checkpoint by the gunman before he could make the call. In the aftermath, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that further legislative action on gun purchases had already been taken. The shooting deepened a national conversation about security at Russian educational institutions, one that had been building since the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004.

Bekmansurov, who was shot and detained during the attack, was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder but declared legally sane. At trial, testimony revealed he had told a former teacher that he admired Hitler and had studied the tactics of other mass killers. He described hating people and wanting to die, saying he had chosen the attack as a means of provoking his own death. He was sentenced to life in prison. An appeal to the Supreme Court in May 2024 was denied. At the university, students and residents created a makeshift memorial of carnations, candles, and photographs along the exterior fence. A chapel was consecrated on campus in November 2024, though its construction had divided university staff and students. The memorial stands as both tribute and wound -- a reminder of the morning that shattered a Monday on campus.