I delved into world of ‘righteous slaughter' school shooters & chilling psychological cocktail that drives them to kill
MASSACRE MONSTERS I delved into world of 'righteous slaughter' school shooters & chilling psychological cocktail that drives them to kill
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
PICTURED staring intensely into the camera lens while cuddling his beloved cat, he looks just like any other young teen.
But between dropping out of sixth form and turning 21, something dark grew in the mind of student Artur A - the man responsible for a shooting spree at his old school in Austria.
17
Artur A killed 10 in a rampage in his school in Graz, Austria
17
Lea Ilir Bajrami, 15, tragically lost her life in the attack in Graz
Credit: Facebook
17
Emergency workers bring victims out of the school building
Credit: AP
On Tuesday, that festering resentment saw him walk into two classrooms at BORG Dreirschutzengasse high school in Graz and open fire with a Glock pistol and a shotgun.
Today 10 families are mourning his victims, mostly teenagers who had their whole lives ahead of them before they were gunned down in cold blood.
Lea Ilir Bajrami and Hana Akmadžićis, both 15, were among the six girls and three boys between 14 and 17 to be killed along with a 59-year-old teacher.
Yet those grieving might never know the exact reason why their loved ones were murdered.
School shootings are on the rise globally.
In America, there were 83 school shootings last year compared to 36 in 2014.
While shootings remain rare in Europe, analysis by The Sun shows 83 people have been shot dead in classrooms across the continent since Britain's worst atrocity at Dunblane Primary School in 1996.
Thirty four of the victims were killed in the last two years following three major attacks, including this week's.
The lone-wolf nature of perpetrators means there are often no warning bells.
Eminent criminologist Professor David Wilson told The Sun: 'The motivation can be a desire for notoriety, for revenge or perhaps because the perpetrator has been radicalised in some way.
Austria school shooter who killed 10 pupils revealed after leaving mum final video message
"School shooters are often isolated from their peer groups, from the community in which they live and often have troubled relationships with their immediate family. Some will have a personality disorder or other underlying mental health issues.
"The 64,000 dollar question is whether it's nature or nurture. For me, it is a messy combination of the two.'
'Justified' in killing
Artur A, who killed himself in the school's toilets, is said to have been badly bullied by fellow pupils before leaving sixth form without qualifications. He was only known to police as a victim of pick-pocketing.
In a 'farewell letter', he reportedly said goodbye to his parents and framed himself as the victim of bullying, reports Krone.
He is also said to have recorded a video and sent it to his mum, speaking about the imminent atrocity, saying he was acting 'of his own free will' and asked her to look after his cat.
17
Hundreds of candles were lit in the main square of Graz
Credit: AP
17
Mourners pay their respects at the makeshift shrine
Credit: AFP
Police later discovered a disassembled pipe bomb at his home.
Professor Wilson says shooters often convince themselves that killing others is somehow justified.
He said: 'There's very often a sense of righteous slaughter, they feel somehow justified in doing what they have done because they feel entitled to behave that way.
'There's a cocktail of factors unique to each shooter that prompts them to do what they do, but the key message is that these incidents only happen in countries which have liberal gun laws.'
17
The school where Artur A claimed 10 lives
Credit: AFP
17
Police block the entrance to the school
Credit: AFP
Handguns were banned in Britain following the Dunblane massacre in 1996 when killer Thomas Hamilton stormed into a primary school, killing 16 children and their teacher.
Hamilton, 43, opened fire on a class of 29 five and six-year-olds before turning the gun on himself after becoming obsessed with revenge over rumours spread locally that he was a pervert.
Professor Wilson said: 'Hamilton was a very different type of shooter in that he hadn't gone to the school but wanted to take revenge on a community.'
Columbine massacre
Analysis shows that bullying is a huge driver in school killings.
A study by the US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Centre reveals that seven in 10 classroom shooters are under the age of 18.
It analyzed the behaviour of 35 attackers and found 80 per cent had been bullied by classmates with more than half the bullying lasting for weeks, months or years.
America's most infamous school shooting was Columbine in Colorado in 1999 when 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold killed 13 students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
Both killers bore a grudge after being bullied and excluded from the cliques at high school, with Harris writing in his journal, "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things" and Klebold writing "The lonely man strikes with absolute rage."
The deadliest came in 2007 when student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Cho, 23, was diagnosed with selective mutism and depression. A judge had previously declared him mentally ill and ordered him to attend treatment after he stalked two female students.
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
Students are overcome with grief at a shrine to Columbine victims
Credit: AP:Associated Press
17
Dylan Klebold opened fire on classmates after being bullied
Credit: Reuters
17
Eric Harris wrote a chilling note in his journal
Credit: Reuters
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 M.Kowalski, 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
Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui shot 32 people in the deadliest US attack
Credit: NBC
17
Students, family and supporters attend a silent vigil in honour of the 32 victims
Credit: Alamy
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
Teachers comfort a student after the Serbian shooting in 2023 claimed nine lives
Credit: EPA
17
Belgrade police block the street to the school
Credit: AP
17
David Kosak opened fire at his Prague university
Credit: czech police
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
Distraught mourners in Sweden, where a gunman opened fire at an adult education centre
Credit: Getty
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
33 minutes ago
- The Independent
Afghan women feel forgotten by world after four years of ‘war' waged by Taliban on their rights
When the Taliban 's men came knocking at her house in January, Nooran* went and hid in her parent's yard. 'I did not want to be arrested along with my mother,' says the Afghan teen. Moments later, her mother Shahbaneh* was taken away. On 8 January, Taliban officials detained Shahbaneh over a social media post ruing the fate of her family's young women, who would no longer be able to attend school. Nooran shows The Independent the Facebook post her mother had made, commenting on the local school's notice that it was shutting down due to a lack of teachers and resources. She wrote in her post: "Forgive me, my daughter, for what we have done to you. We cannot escape this savage group.' Within a few hours, she received a message telling her: 'Remove your message because you have insulted the Taliban. This is the order of the Commander of the Faithful.' The next day, two Taliban men arrived in Ford Ranger pick-up trucks in their busy neighbourhood in Herat and summoned Shahbaneh. 'They then took my mother away,' Nooran says, sitting alongside her in a video call from Afghanistan late in the evening. They fall quiet as a motorbike passes by outside, afraid they might be overheard. Friday marks four years since the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan, seizing Kabul from a democratically-elected government after the shambolic withdrawal of Nato forces. Since 2021 the Taliban have announced around 100 edicts restricting the movement of girls and women through society, arresting women for having ill-fitting head scarves, speaking on social media and being out in public. Despite claiming it would not return to its hardline rule of the 1990s, not a single one of these edicts has been overturned, according to the UN assistance mission for Afghanistan (Unama). More than 78 per cent of Afghan women are no longer in education, employment or training, the UN said this month in its report. The edicts are also a matter of life and death in areas of the health sector, with a shortage of female healthcare workers allowed to treat women patients. 'The results are devastating. Women are living shorter, less healthy lives,' the Unama said. The Taliban does not hesitate in enforcing its rules by arresting and detaining women who break them – placing them in prisons where abuse is commonplace. The Independent heard repeated claims that women are raped by guards in these facilities, allegations which are difficult to verify. 'At night, I saw the Taliban prisons where the basic living conditions are horrible, guards coming in and taking the women away at night. Next day, the women would tell us they were raped,' Shahbaneh says. 'They tied my hands to my head, and beat me up till I cried, telling me that they will kill me if I continue to speak about education of girls and women,' she says. Shahbaneh narrated the basic conditions of prison treatment under the Taliban, consistent with multiple other accounts of arrested men and women. 'There will be no food, no water, you are locked away in a dark room for days and nights. There isn't even a window for feeling any air on your face – that is the punishment you get for crossing the Taliban,' the 37-year-old former teacher says. 'As a punishment, many women who shared the cell with me were asked to clean the prison floor,' she said. She was released after a month on 8 February this year, still with her only 'crime' being a social media post criticising the most basic violation of human rights. Recounting her pain – and expressing disbelief that the world is turning a blind eye – she says: 'We are in danger for even breathing and existing as women. It is like the world cannot hear our voices, like they hate Afghan women.' The restrictions on all aspects of women's lives seem only to be tightening, with the number of punishments over hijab regulations growing. In certain parts of Afghanistan including Herat province, women have been ordered to wear a chador, a full body covering, and are banned from going out in public if they fail to do so. Unama says the Taliban have asked health clinics and private businesses to strictly refuse services to women who are not accompanied by a male chaperone, a mehram. Asma, a 27-year-old who has been offering discreet legal advice to women in Kabul, says that the options available to women in her field of divorce and domestic violence cases have become bleak. 'Me and my colleagues who are working with women seeking divorce over domestic violence from their husbands face two hellish choices – go back to their abusive husband or face prison time. Surprisingly, the women are choosing to go to prison,' the young legal adviser told The Independent. 'In the prison, many are facing rape and physical assault.' The Independent has reached out to the Taliban's ministry of interior for a comment on these allegations about its prison system, but had not received a response at the time of publication. Sadly, the allegations are hardly new – dire accounts of ill treatment from women who have left Taliban detention have been a constant feature of the past four years. Julia Parsi, a former Afghan teacher turned prominent human rights defender who burned a photo of the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah in 2022, lost hearing in one of her ears after being slapped by several Taliban officials in prison. 'I was subjected to severe psychological and physical pressure. The psychological torture was far worse than the physical abuse. They threatened me with harm to my family, especially my young daughters. The interrogations were filled with threats, insults, and humiliation,' the exiled Afghan activist told The Independent. She had to be hospitalised after her release from e prison in December 2022. Parsi, now out of Afghanistan after facing death threats but continuing to work for Afghan women rights, says women are being rounded up and put behind the bars for 'opposing the Taliban's policies'. 'In recent arrests, the Taliban have primarily targeted women who have raised their voices on social media or participated in civic and political activities. Even women who have spoken only in small gatherings or taught lessons in their homes have been arrested under the accusation of 'opposing Taliban policies',' Parsi said, adding 'improper hijab' has been the biggest reason in recent weeks for the arrest of Afghan girls and women. ''Improper hijab' is merely an excuse — the real purpose is to suppress and silence women,' she says. Such 'policies' are having a profound effect on a generation of women – 62 per cent of Afghan women now feel they cannot even influence decisions at home, let alone have their voices or faces be seen outside, according to a UN survey. Zubaida Akbar, an Afghan human rights expert and programme manager at Femena, an organisation that supports human rights defenders, said that the Taliban have tortured women with physical abuse including rape and sexual assault, alongside mental abuse and ethnic slurs. 'In terms of the ways that the Taliban have degraded women, women activists detailed to us physical abuse, assault, beatings inside the prison, sexual abuse, lack of access to food, sanitation, not being able to sleep, interrogations, especially late at night,' Akbar told The Independent. 'In the cases where women are abducted from their homes, I don't say arrested because the Taliban are not the government, they don't have a legal system – none of [what] has happened, happens legally. Women are abducted from their homes or from the streets,' Akbar said, calling on the international community to do more to protect Afghan women. 'The world must pay attention, first and foremost. They need to pressure the Taliban to end their war on the women of Afghanistan and reverse all of the 130 edicts that the Taliban have issued against women.' Even when they leave prison, women told The Independent that the experience robbed them of their sense of security in their communities, and they feared stepping out of their homes. 'When my mother goes out of the house, her heart is always beating, worried that someone will attack her. With every step, she is always looking behind her while walking. A few days back, my mother's friend asked her, 'Why are you looking behind you so much?'. My mother just stood there in silence, afraid of confessing her fears,' Nooran said. But her ordeal has not broken Shahbaneh's spirit. She says she plans to demonstrate again on Friday against the Taliban. 'I am going to protest again on 15 August to mark my refusal to accept them as our leaders,' she says. 'This does not end, my fight will continue to free my daughter from the Taliban's grip.'
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Vintage shop owner finds stash of drugs in pocket of 1990s Stone Island jacket
Kris Boyle made the bizarre discovery after buying a 1997 Stone Island jacket for his clothing store. A vintage shop owner was left stunned after he found drugs stashed in the pocket of a 1990s designer jacket. Kris Boyle, owner of the Dundee Sole store, in the city's Wellgate Shopping Centre, found the block of 'soap bar' hash after purchasing a Stone Island Raso Gommat jacket from 1997. He reckons the drugs had lay inside the garment for nearly 30 years. Kris, who opened the shop seven years ago, said: "The jacket came from one of our long standing vintage suppliers based in the south of England. "We work with them regularly to source unique and authentic pieces, and occasionally those pieces arrive with unexpected little time capsules hidden inside. "The jacket has since been sold to a customer, and it proved particularly popular after people heard about its unusual find." The discovery tops the list of strangest things he's found in vintage clothes - and is now proudly on display within his shop in the north east. The 37-year-old added: "The soap bar has been kept here at Dundee Sole as part of our small but growing collection of unusual discoveries. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. "We see it as a light hearted reminder of the charm and unpredictability of working with vintage clothing. "Over the years, we've uncovered a surprising number of unusual items hidden away in pockets, linings, and boxes. Many of them have been small snapshots of a moment in time. Ordinary objects, but frozen in the year they were left behind." Kris shared the rare find in a Facebook post. He wrote: "You find some funny things in the pockets of vintage jackets, my favourite finds truly are things that have been long forgotten. "This is hilarious!! Found in the pocket of a 90s stone island raso. There's nothing more nostalgic to someone from Scotland in the 90s than a bit of soap bar." The find went down well with customers, who flocked to the comment section to joke about the discovery. One posted: "The smell of that. I wish Yankee candle done one." Another said: "I once bought a Burberry golf jacket on EBay from a guy in Aberdeen, it had a £20 note in the inside pocket." A third joked: "Stick in the pocket of something n the shop, lucky dip style, that'll boost your sales." Another poster said: "The cause of many a ruined shell suit", while a fifth joker typed: "We all had asbestos thumbs and forefingers in the 90's." Another added: "You can't smell a picture." Kris told the Record of the other rare finds he's made while running the shop - finding everything from women's underwear to cinema tickets for 90s blockbusters. As well as a ticket from London's King's Cross Station, which he found in a jacket from the 70's, he also came across a cinema stub for the original Jurassic Park from July 1993.
BBC News
5 hours ago
- BBC News
Anger and confusion as Meta overturns more Instagram account bans
Instagram users have told the BBC of their confusion, fear and anger after having their accounts suspended, often for being wrongly accused by parent company Meta of breaching the platform's child sex abuse months, tens of thousands of people around the world have been complaining Meta has been banning their Instagram and Facebook accounts in say they have been wrongly accused of breaching site rules - including around child sexual than 500 of them have contacted the BBC to say they have lost cherished photos and seen businesses upended - but some also speak of the profound personal toll it has taken on them, including concerns that the police could become acknowledged a problem with the erroneous banning of Facebook Groups in June, but has denied there is wider issue on Facebook or Instagram at has repeatedly refused to comment on the problems its users are facing - though it has frequently overturned bans when the BBC has raised individual cases with are some of the stories users have shared with BBC News. 'I put all of my trust in social media' Yassmine Boussihmed, 26, from the Netherlands, spent five years building an Instagram profile for her boutique dress shop in April, she was banned over account integrity. Over 5,000 followers, gone in an instant. She lost clients, and was devastated."I put all of my trust in social media, and social media helped me grow, but it has let me down," she told the week, after the BBC sent questions about her case to Meta's press office, her Instagram accounts were reinstated."I am so thankful," she said in a tearful voice note. Five minutes later, her personal Instagram was suspended again - but the account for the dress shop remained. Lucia, not her real name, is a 21-year-old woman from Austin, Texas. She was suspended from Instagram for just over two weeks for breaching Meta's policy on child sexual exploitation (CSE), abuse and with all the other cases, she was not told what post breached the platform's has left wondering if a picture she posted of herself and her 21-year-old friend wearing bikini tops somehow triggered the artificial intelligence (AI) moderation tools, as she thinks they "look a little bit younger".She also uses her account to interact with under 18s, such as sending Reels to her younger sister."It is deeply troubling to have an accusation as disgusting as this one," she told BBC News."Given that I have a desire to work in juvenile justice as an attorney and advocate on behalf of children, I am appalled to have been suspended for something I know I did not do and would never do."She appealed, and then about seven hours after the BBC highlighted Lucia's case to Meta's press office, her account was restored with no explanation. Over 36,000 people have signed a petition accusing Meta of falsely banning accounts; thousands more are in Reddit forums or on social media posting about central accusation - Meta's AI is unfairly banning people, with the tech also being used to deal with the appeals. The only way to speak to a human is to pay for Meta Verified, and even then many are has not commented on these claims. Instagram states AI is central to its "content review process" and Meta has outlined how technology and humans enforce its policies. A community torn away Duncan Edmonstone, from Cheshire, has stage four ALK+ lung cancer. The 55-year-old finds solace in the support network he has on private Facebook 12 days at the end of June, he was banned for breaking cybersecurity guidelines before being reinstated."The support groups are my lifeline, and there are actual examples of where advice from group members has made a difference to other patient's treatment," he said."I draw satisfaction and meaning, in a life that is probably going to be cut short, from helping other people in that group." Banned, unbanned - then banned again Ryan - not his real name - has been banned, reinstated, and banned again from Instagram over the past few former teacher from London was thrown off the platform in May after he was accused of breaching the CSE spent a month appealing. In June, the BBC understands a human moderator double checked and concluded Ryan had breached the his account was abruptly restored at the end of July."We're sorry we've got this wrong," Instagram said in an email to him, adding that he had done nothing was left flabbergasted. "'Sorry we called you a paedophile for two months - here is your account back,'" is how he characterised the tone of the that wasn't the end of the story. Hours after the BBC contacted Meta's press office to ask questions about his experience, he was banned again on Instagram and, for the first time, Facebook."I am devastated and I don't know what to do," he told the BBC."I can't believe it has happened twice."His Facebook account was back two days later - but he was still blocked from Instagram. Ryan says he has been left feeling deeply isolated - and worried the police are going to "knock on the door".His experiences mirrors those of other Instagram users who told the BBC of the "extreme stress" of having their accounts banned after being wrongly accused of breaching the platform's rules on CSE. What has Meta said? Despite taking action on Yassmine, Lucia and Ryan's accounts, Meta has not made any comment to the common with all big technology firms, it has come under pressure from authorities to make its platforms July, Meta said it was taking "aggressive action" on accounts breaking its rules - including the removal of 635,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts over sexualised comments and imagery in relation to wide-ranging policy on child sexual exploitation has changed three times since Boxing Day last year, with all amendments occurring since 17 July. It has not said what impact, if any, these changes had on the cases the BBC has raised with it. Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
