At Least 10 Dead After Shooting at Austrian High School, Police Say
Nine people were killed Tuesday after a gunman opened fire in a school in the city of Graz, Austria, according to state police. The shooter was also found dead, according to police, in what is believed to have been a suicide.
Police officers, included specially trained COBRA units, Austria's version of a SWAT team, and a police helicopter, arrived at the crime scene after shots were reported and have started gathering evidence in what was probably the worst school shooting in Europe in years.
Among the dead were students and at least one adult, according to remarks by Elke Kahr, Graz's mayor, reported by the Austria Press Agency.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said in a post on social media, 'The shooting rampage at a school in Graz is a national tragedy that has deeply shaken our entire country.' Stocker and the interior minister were traveling to Graz.
Graz is Austria's second-largest city, after Vienna, and is a vibrant, wealthy university town. It experienced a major mass attack a decade ago, when a man killed three people and wounded about three dozen others after driving a car into crowds on the streets of the city and then attacking bystanders with a knife.
In the attack Tuesday, police said they had responded to reports of gunfire in a building at a high school in the north of the city around 10 a.m. local time.
Evacuation of the school was completed before noon. A stadium about a mile away was opened as a safe gathering site for students and their parents.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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'The most upset of any kind that usually happens here are disputes on the playground with kids fighting over their toys. To have a mass murderer in our midst – this is an American story, not an Austrian one.'
