Austrian police search for answers after mass shooting in school
Austrian authorities were searching Wednesday for answers to why a 21-year-old gunman shot dead 10 people in a rampage at his former high school before killing himself, one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the country's modern history.
Police said the man, armed with a shotgun and a pistol, acted alone. They are scouring his home and the internet for clues to why he opened fire on the school in Austria's second city of Graz on Tuesday, before shooting himself in a bathroom.
The incident was hard to properly take in, said a religious studies teacher at the school, Paul Nitsche, who left his classroom before the gunman tried to enter, and briefly saw him trying to shoot the lock off another door.
'This is something I couldn't even imagine before, that's what the situation was like as I ran down the stairwell, I thought to myself: 'This wasn't real,'' he told national broadcaster ORF.
Some Austrian media have said the young man, who has not been identified, apparently felt bullied, though police have yet to confirm this. Austrian authorities said the suspect never completed his studies at the school.
He left a farewell note that did not reveal the motive for the attack, police said, adding that a pipe bomb found at his home was not functional.
Franz Ruf, director general of public security, said investigations into the motive were moving swiftly.
'We don't want to speculate at this point,' he told ORF on Tuesday night.
Around 17 minutes elapsed between the first emergency calls received by police about shots being fired at the school and the scene being declared safe, Ruf said.
Details of the attack have emerged slowly.
Austrian police said victims were found both outside and inside the school, on various floors. About a dozen people were injured in the attack, some seriously.
Austria declared three days of national mourning, with the shootings prompting a rare show of solidarity among often bitterly divided political parties. Parents of pupils and neighbors of the school struggled to make sense of the event.
Hundreds came together in Graz's main square on Tuesday evening to remember the victims. Others left flowers and lit candles outside the school. Dozens also queued to donate blood for the survivors.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Graz gunman was first-person shooter games obsessive, police say
A gunman who killed 10 people at his former school in the Austrian city of Graz was an 'obsessive online first-person shooter', according to police, who gave detailed information for the first time about how he had planned the attack. The 21-year-old Austrian, who shot dead 10 people and then himself on Tuesday morning after going on a rampage at the school close to the city centre, had spent much of his free time playing what were described by police as 'ego shooting' online video games, in which participants typically use virtual firearms to kill enemies. Police said they believed the online community of players formed his main social contacts and that he was otherwise a loner who kept to himself. It emerged that among the people killed by the man, identified by the Austrian and German media as Arthur A, was one of his former teachers. Police said it was unknown if he had deliberately targeted her. The 59-year-old teacher was killed along with nine pupils – six female and three male – aged between 14 and 17. Nine people are still being treated in hospital for their injuries, including a male teacher, but all were stable and the last two in intensive care were to be moved out during the course of the day, health officials said. It also emerged on Thursday in a report by the state broadcaster ORF, which was confirmed by a spokesperson for the country's military, that the killer had recently failed a psychological test to enter the armed forces. However, he had even more recently passed the psychological checks required to be in possession of the weapons he used to carry out the killings, which he carried legally, police said. The man, who had attended the school and dropped out three years ago, was an apprentice at an industrial school. He lived alone with his mother and was not previously known to police. The shooting rampage, the worst in the country's history, has sparked an emotional debate over the state of the country's gun laws, which critics have said are too lax. During a visit to Graz on Wednesday evening, Belgium's president, Alexander Van der Bellen, said it was necessary for politicians to review the laws and to 'look into how it is possible for a 21-year-old to own handguns and long weapons and have the opportunity to purchase the appropriate ammunition for them and to cause this mayhem'. The country's national security council, set up in light of the 9/11 attacks in the US, was due to address the issue when it met on Thursday afternoon. Discussions have also begun about tightening security in schools across the country, with some calling for the installation of metal detectors at school gates. Michael Lohnegger, the head of the Styrian state criminal police office, said the man planned the attack in minute detail. He described how the man entered the main entrance of the BORG Dreierschützengasse school at 9.43am on Tuesday carrying a backpack containing his weapons and ammunition. Between 350 and 400 pupils were present on site at the time. 'He went into a toilet on the third floor and took various objects out of his rucksack. He put on a weapons belt with a hunting knife, a pair of shooting glasses and a headset, took out a Glock 19 pistol, a sawn-off Mercury shotgun, and loaded the weapons. 'At 9.47 he proceeded to carry out a seven-minute rampage through the school, going from the third to the second floor, and opened fire randomly on people in the school, who were from the 5th class. 'He finally went to the third floor where pupils of the 7th class were … fired at the closed doors of the classrooms until he was able to open them and then randomly shot at the people he found there.' He finally returned to the toilet cubicle on the third floor where he subsequently shot himself in the head at 10.07am, Lohnegger said. Owing to the fact that the first team of armed police entered the school building at 10.06am and heard no shots, investigators are working on the assumption that Arthur A might well have planned to carry out more killings, as he had plenty more ammunition on his person, but his knowledge that police were in the building may have prompted him to stop. There was no evidence that the killer knew the pupils he shot, Lohnegger added, but it had been established he had been taught by the teacher who was killed. There was no evidence that this was a motive behind the killing, he said. Lohnegger said Arthur A had worked out a 'very detailed plan of action. He had informed himself extremely precisely and given a lot of thought as to when he would approach each floor.' There was no information as to when he abandoned plans to deploy a homemade pipe bomb, found at his home, after it proved to be dysfunctional, although Lohnegger said it 'in theory contained all the components necessary' to work. Arthur A bought the shotgun in mid-April and the handgun several weeks later. He had been attending shooting practice at a range in Graz since March, Lohnegger said. He said people at the school had reacted 'very well' to the incident, after recent training in what to do in case of a shooting, by shutting doors and barricading themselves into classrooms. Police said they had yet to rule out that the killer may have had an accomplice who helped him in his planning or in his execution of the attack. Lohnegger described Arthur A as someone who lived a 'very reserved' life and 'was not very willing to participate in real life'. A search of the flat where he lived with his mother in a suburb south of Graz had uncovered a suicide note 'directed as an apology towards his family'. The first details of some of the victims began emerging on Wednesday evening. A 15-year-old Bosnian-Austrian girl called Hana was one of the first to be killed, her family said. She had been preparing to give a lecture to her class. Speaking on behalf of her Bosnian Muslim family, Sabahudin Hasić, a local imam, said they were 'utterly destroyed, as is our whole community. This deed is completely unimaginable.' Hana had wanted to study medicine, he said, describing her as a 'sunshine'. In a post on social media, her father wrote: 'My little mouse, may God give you paradise'. Standing next to her in class had been Lea B, who was also killed. The 15-year-old's family had come to Austria from Kosovo, and she was born in Austria. Sokol Haliti, the mayor of the family's home town in Viti, Kosovo, told Austrian media that the community, where her father was born and where her grandparents still live, was in mourning. 'It is a terrible tragedy. Not only for Austria. Lea was also one of us,' he said.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
When it comes to reporting on mass killings, some in Europe take a different approach from Americans
When a 21-year-old former student opened fire inside his school in Austria's second-biggest city earlier this week, killing 10 people, it didn't take long for the Alpine country's press council to call on journalists to show restraint when reporting about the victims and their families. The appeal essentially reminded journalists covering the school shooting — the deadliest attack in Austria's post-war history -- to refrain from publishing names and other details about the victims. Police also didn't release any details about the victims other than their age, gender and nationality, in line with the country's strict privacy rules. Austria 's press council aims to uphold ethic standards during violent news events The press council, a voluntary self-regulatory body for Austrian media that aims to uphold ethical principles and standards of journalism, argues that journalistic restraint is needed during breaking news about attacks because the publication of the victims' personal details or pictures could cause additional trauma for the families. 'You should always think twice and three times about whether this could also be a burden," Alexander Warzilek, the managing director of the Austrian Press Council, told the Austria Press Agency, even as he acknowledged that 'there is a great need for information.' The Austrian Press Council also reminded reporters to adhere to its media code which specifically states that 'in the case of children, the protection of privacy must take precedence over news value.' Protection of victims and news consumers trumps media ratings In addition to protecting those affected by the tragedy, there's also concern about those who consume news about horrific events, especially children, says Claudia Paganini, an expert of media ethics at Austria's University of Innsbruck. In the school shooting Tuesday morning at the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school in Graz, nine students were killed — six girls and three boys aged between 14 and 17 — as well as a teacher, police said. Another 11 people were wounded — some of them also minors. The attacker killed himself in a bathroom of his former school. Paganini said consuming news about violent attacks can cause trauma and emotional overload for individuals as well as the brutalization of society in the long run. 'As opposed to the United States, where news are seen as a product and reporters are pushed to get all the details in order to raise the visibility of their news organization, journalism in northern Europe is seen as a service to society and to democracy that comes along with a lot of responsibility,' Paganini said. In the U.S., reporting on victims is a way to put a face on the tragedy In the United States, where news organizations have more experience dealing with mass shootings, reporting on victims is fairly standard and becomes an important vehicle to put a human face on the tragedy, said Josh Hoffner, director of U.S. news for The Associated Press. 'Many families are open to having those stories out there to celebrate the legacies of their loved ones and call attention to the failures that lead to shootings,' he said. Some news organizations make it a point to minimize the names of the alleged perpetrator of such crimes. There have been public campaigns to encourage journalists to focus on victims, survivors and heroes instead of the people who commit the crimes, said Amanda Crawford, a journalism professor at the University of Connecticut who is writing a book on media coverage of mass shootings. Whenever there is a mass shooting, a team at CNN is assigned right away to learn as much about the victims as possible, said Matthew Hilk, senior vice president for national news at CNN. They are important voices that help viewers understand the gravity of the situation, he said. Often, survivors and their families also become active politically in lobbying for gun control legislation or other measures to curb these crimes. 'We always approach victims and survivors, and people connected to victims and survivors, with extreme sensitivity and certainly never push anyone to discuss anything they don't want to discuss,' Hilk said. Reporters who break the press code are shunned by their colleagues Of course, not all reporters in Austria and elsewhere in Europe abide by the voluntary press code to stay away from victims. Those who break the code — especially those from tabloid newspapers — are often shunned by media colleagues. There's even a German term to describe reporters who ruthlessly try to interview those affected by tragedy. It's called 'Witwenschütteln,' or 'shaking widows,' which in journalistic jargon means pressurizing the families of victims until they give up quotes. Germany and Sweden also expect ethical responsibility from journalists The call for responsible reporting in the face of tragedy and the plea to withhold information that may interest readers isn't unique to Austria. Publishing intimate information about victims is also considered unethical in neighboring Germany. When a German co-pilot intentionally crashed a plane flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf into the Alps ten years ago, killing all 150 people on board, the German Press Council received 430 complaints by readers and viewers who criticized the fact that the victims' and their families' rights to anonymity had been violated. The press council reprimanded several media outlets based on the complaints. That usually means that the reprimand must be published in the publication concerned. When 10 people were killed at an adult education center in Orebro in Sweden in February, in what is considered the Scandinavian country's worst mass shooting, the country's Professional Ethics Committee of the Union of Journalists, or YEN, specifically called out a reporter at Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet for interviewing a relative of the perpetrator after receiving several complaints about that report. The right to anonymity also applies to attackers The right to anonymity also applies to the perpetrator in Austria as well as Germany and Sweden. When asked at a press conference Thursday why police did not publish a picture or release the name of the 21-year-old Austrian perpetrator from Graz who committed suicide right after his shooting rampage, the head of the Styrian State Office of Criminal Investigation, Michael Lohnegger replied that 'we are not allowed to.' He added that 'if we publish photographs, it is for search purposes. There is no reason for a manhunt here. Therefore, as an investigating authority, we have no basis for publishing personal data or photographs." Lessons learned from the Nazi past In addition to the belief that the protection of those affected by a tragedy should be more important than the right to information, Paganini said there's also a historical reason for shying away from any abuse of journalistic powers. 'Especially Germans and Austrians still remember how irresponsibility and propaganda by the media during the Nazi times led to the brutalization of civil society,' she said.
North Wales Chronicle
2 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
King expresses sympathy for Austria in wake of ‘horrific' school shooting
Charles described how the 'horrific attack' was all the more dreadful because 'schools should be places of sanctuary and learning'. Ten people were killed in the shooting at the Borg Dreierschutzengasse secondary school on Tuesday, which ended with the gunman taking his own life. The King's message to the people of Austria following the school shooting in Graz. — The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) June 12, 2025 Austria has declared three days of national mourning following what appears to be the deadliest attack in its post-Second World War history. Charles wrote: 'My wife and I were deeply shocked and saddened to learn about the appallingly tragic events at the Dreierschutzengasse school in Graz. 'Schools should be places of sanctuary and learning, which makes this horrific attack on students and staff all the more dreadful.' He added: 'Our most heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the families of all those affected by this terrible loss of life and injury. 'We send our deepest sympathy to all Austrians at this profoundly distressing time.' Police said they found a farewell letter and a non-functional pipe bomb when they searched the home of the gunman. The 21-year-old Austrian man lived near Graz and was a former student at the school who had not completed his studies.
