Austrian school shooter planned attack but motive still unclear, officials say
A man who killed nine students and a teacher at his former school in Austria and then took his own life planned the attack in detail, investigators have revealed.
However, he appears to have shot his victims at random, and investigators have still not been able to ascertain his motive.
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A police officer guards the entrance of a school where a former student opened fire (Darko Bandic/AP)
The 21-year-old had left the BORG Dreierschutzengasse high school in Graz three years previously, breaking off his studies after attending for three years, police say.
They said they knew of no personal connection between the gunman and the students he had shot, but that one of the two teachers he shot had once taught him.
Officials were still investigating whether that was a factor in the attack.
The incident prompted Austria to declare three days of national mourning and large numbers of candles have been laid in Graz's main square and outside the school.
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The assailant, an Austrian man who lived with his mother near Graz and whom officials have declined to identify, used a Mercury double-barrelled shotgun and a Glock 19 handgun in the shooting.
People commemorate the victims of a shooting at a school (Darko Bandic/AP)
Michael Lohnegger, the head of Styria province's criminal police office, said that he arrived at the school on Tuesday morning with a backpack containing the weapons, and put on equipment including shooting glasses and a headset in the bathroom before starting a roughly seven-minute shooting spree.
The gunman opened fire indiscriminately on the building's third floor before shooting open the locked door of a fourth-floor classroom and again firing indiscriminately, Mr Lohnegger told a news conference.
Mr Lohnegger said that the gunman had enough ammunition to continue shooting and it was unclear why he had not.
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The gunman then returned to the bathroom and fatally shot himself in the head.
A search of his home uncovered a farewell letter and a video, which Mr Lohnegger said added up to 'an apology directed to his family for the crime and a general thank you', but offered 'no indication for the motive'.
Investigators have yet to ascertain a motive for the shooting (Darko Bandic/AP)
Authorities also found a handwritten note that showed he had planned the attack 'down to the smallest detail', setting out how he would proceed but giving no date for the crime.
The note had suggested that he had lacked enough time to build a fully functional pipe bomb. Investigators had found one, but it would not have worked.
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Mr Lohnegger said a picture had emerged of a 'very introverted person' who largely did not take part in real-world activities and that his great passion was playing online first-person shooter games.
'But even here, there is no information from his personal surroundings that he ever expressed any anger or resentment towards the school, students or teachers,' he added.
The man had no previous police record and 'there were definitely no particular problems with him at this school'.
The gunman was in unspecified vocational training at the time of the attack, investigators added.
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Austrian President Alexander van Der Bellen attends a wreath-laying ceremony after a former student opened fire, killing 10 people and injuring many others before taking his own life (Darko Bandic/AP)
He had bought the shotgun legally in Graz in early April and the handgun was bought from another shop in the city in late May.
He had a licence to own the weapons that required a report from a psychological expert, which was allegedly produced in March.
The gunman also took part in shooting practice five times in March at a shooting club in Graz using a hired firearm, Mr Lohnegger said.
Six girls and three boys aged between 14 and 17 and a teacher were killed in the attack.
Eleven people were wounded and authorities said that their lives were not in danger.
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The Sun
an hour ago
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Yet, he was allowed to buy weapons because he had not been institutionalised. Five years later, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot dead 20 children aged between six and seven and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The US has seen a tenfold rise in incidents involving guns in schools over the last 25 years, from 31 in 2000 to 332 last year. Nine of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the US occurred after 2007. 17 17 Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute, says a rise in 'life stressors' such as hardships related to finances, employment, family and relationships drove some to 'act out or respond violently'. She added that "toxic masculinity" has contributed to the steep increase. "If we are trying to understand the root causes of gun violence, we need to start by understanding why people pick up firearms in the first place to inflict harm, regardless of the target of that harm," she said. Robin a psychology professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, studied shootings in school and colleges and found that the majority of perpetrators are white with a median age of 15, feel marginalised or bullied and use the events to take their own lives. She says they are likely to have a history of psychological problems, suffer long-term or acute rejection, such as a break-up, and often have a fascination with guns and violence. 'The individuals behind the Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings, among others, had been diagnosed with an assortment of psychological conditions,' Kowalski wrote for the Brookings Institution. 17 17 Death toll rising While school shootings are still unusual in Europe, the death toll is high. In May 2023, 13-year-old Kosta Kecmanovic gunned down eight of his fellow pupils and a security guard at his school in Belgrade after drawing up a 'hit list'. In a chilling postscript, Serbian police arrested ten teenagers in the week after the massacre after they posted plans for similar attacks on fellow pupils. Months later in the Czech Republic, postgraduate student David Kozak murdered 14 at Charles University in central Prague. He had previously dropped out of education. Earlier this year, Sweden suffered a tragedy when a gunman opened fire at an adult education centre, killing 10 students before turning the gun on himself. Shooter Rickard Andersson, 35, was a society drop out who had previously applied for a maths course at the centre before leaving the course in 2021. 17 17 17 While there is no comparison data with America, research by the Rockefeller Institute of Government shows the US had suffered 'more public mass shootings' than countries with similar levels of economic development. According to their study, 109 shootings were recorded in the US between 2020 and 2022, compared to six in France, five in Germany, three in Finland and two in the UK, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden during the same period. These figures reflect the severity of gun laws in different countries. According to the Small Arms Survey, there are an estimated 120.5 civilian firearms per 100 people in America. In contrast, the figure is 4.6 in England and Wales, 19.6 in France and Germany, 30 in Austria and 391 in Serbia. 17 17
