A former student opened fire at a school in Austria’s second-biggest city on Tuesday, killing 10 people and wounding 12 others before taking his own life, authorities said.
There was no immediate information on the motive of the 21-year-old man, who had no previous police record.
He used two weapons, which he was believed to have owned legally, police said.
Photo: AP
“Today is a dark day in the history of our country,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker told reporters in Graz, a city of about 300,000 people in southeastern Austria.
He called it “a national tragedy that shocks us deeply” and said there would be three days of national mourning, with the Austrian flag lowered to half-staff at official buildings.
A national minute of silence was held yesterday morning.
Photo: AFP
Special forces were among those sent to the BORG Dreierschutzengasse high school, about 1km from Graz’s historic center, after calls at 10am reporting shots at the building.
More than 300 police officers were sent to the school, which was evacuated. Footage from the scene showed students filing out quickly past armed officers.
Police said that security was restored in 17 minutes.
Tuesday.Photo: Reuters
The assailant, who acted alone, was a 21-year-old Austrian man who lived near Graz, police said.
His name was not released.
Regional police chief Gerald Ortner said two firearms — a long gun and a handgun — were used in the shooting and recovered from the scene, and that the assailant was apparently legally in possession of them. The man took his own life in a bathroom.
Austrian Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner said the gunman had been a student at the school and had not completed his studies.
He did not specify when the man left the school or at what age.
Karner said that six of the dead were female and three male, but did not give further information.
He said that 12 people were wounded.
The state hospital in Graz later said that a 10th person, an adult woman, had died of her injuries, the Austria Press Agency reported.
Austria’s Red Cross said it had deployed 65 ambulances to the scene and 158 emergency staffers were helping treat the injured people.
In addition, 40 psychologists with specialized training were counseling students and parents. The Red Cross also called on locals to come forward and donate blood.
Metin Ozden was in his kebab restaurant near the school when he first heard police cars speed by and then a police helicopter above.
“I knew something bad had happened ... I’ve never seen so many emergency services in my entire life,” He told the Krone.
He also described to the newspaper seeing parents walking past his restaurant and crying on the way to the school.
Police said that investigators found a farewell letter and a nonfunctional pipe bomb when they searched the home of the suspect.
Police didn’t elaborate on investigators’ findings in a brief post on social network X, but a senior official said that the letter had not allowed them to draw conclusions.
“A farewell letter in analog and digital form was found,” Franz Ruf, the public security director at the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, told ORF public television. “He says goodbye to his parents, but no motive can be inferred from the farewell letter, and that is a matter for further investigations.”
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