'This isn't real': teacher's narrow escape from Austria school shooter
Religion teacher Paul G. Nitsche was working on his own with the door open on the upper floor of the Dreierschuetzengasse secondary school in Graz when the shooting started.
"I heard this bang. And I blocked it out," the 51-year-old told reporters, whose students were elsewhere sitting their final year exams.
It was only when he heard the sound of bullet casings hitting the floor of a corridor outside, that "something snapped inside me" and the realisation dawned, he said.
"I jumped up and thought, that as a teacher alone in a classroom with a possible attacker, this is a very bad situation.
"And I decided to run.
"I ran out quickly through the corridor, which is only a few metres long, and then down the stairs."
It was then that the evangelical pastor saw the shooter in the corridor of the floor below. The sight of him stopped him in his tracks "for a moment".
- 'You try to block everything out' -
"He was trying to shoot the door (of a classroom) open with his rifle.
"He was busy.... and I didn't look around much either... I didn't hang around," Nitsche said.
"And as I ran down the stairs, I thought to myself, 'This isn't real, this is a film.'"
But when he got to the lower floor "I saw a student lying on the floor and a teacher was there, and I knew, 'Ah, this is serious.'"
"As a human being, you really try (to understand what is happening), I know that from my crisis training, but (at the same time) you really try to block everything out," the pastor added.
"I think the emergency services were there a minute or two later, thank God."
What struck Nitsche was the eerie silence that had fallen over the school.
"It was very quiet. Everyone was calm.
There was total silence. No screaming, nothing. That's not what school is like.
"And the emergency services arrived in normal police cars, four of them with bulletproof vests, and then they went in."
Nitsche said it was hard to grasp the enormity of what had happened. What he experienced was just one part of "a mosaic with lots of pieces".
He went back to help comfort students outside the school Wednesday.
- A city in shock -
A large black banner, "Graz stands together", was strung across a fence nearby as Austria's second city tried to come to terms with the tragedy.
Small groups of students, most dressed in black and many of them crying, placed candles at the entrance of the closed school.
Tuesday's shooting is an unprecedented case of deadly gun violence in the usually peaceful Alpine country.
Police said the shooter, a 21-year-old former student at the school, killed himself in a toilet after leaving 10 dead or dying and wounding 12 others.
Police found a "non-functional homemade bomb" during a search of his home. A goodbye letter addressed to the suspect's parents was also recovered, though it included no clues about his motive.
Locals in Graz are struggling to express their shock.
"You can see here how the whole city, probably the whole country is reeling," Michael Saad, a 22-year-old student, told AFP at a candlelight vigil late Tuesday.
Saad was among hundreds gathered at the central square in Graz, many young people, placing candles at the feet of a monument in the square in a sombre atmosphere as people stood in silence.
Many hugged with tears in their eyes, while others talked quietly in muffled voices.
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ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
'Sovereign citizens' threaten safety, stability of society, WA Chief Justice Peter Quinlan says
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Justice Quinlan said the group — which he characterised as a spectrum ranging from those who do not recognise the authority of the legal system, through to those getting conflicting messages on social media — was "one of the emerging challenges that the courts face". "As with any other institution of government, the courts depend for their function on trust and public confidence," he said. "People who you can broadly describe as sovereign citizens are people who, by definition, do not have that trust or confidence because they deny the legitimacy of the courts. More directly though, Justice Quinlan said those who did not believe in the authority of the courts often became "agitated or disruptive". "Judges are able to deal with people of all kinds, but it can't help but have an impact, particularly if there are actual threats, which there are from time-to-time," he said. "The impact on court staff can be very pronounced because they're at the coalface, they're on the registries, on the other end of the phones, they're in the court buildings with people. "It can have a very significant adverse impact on court staff having to deal with people who … can become very agitated by the fact that their view of what the law is does not accord with what the law actually is." But Justice Quinlan said many pseudo-law adherents were also harming themselves by maintaining their beliefs, despite having genuine legal claims or defences. "It's very difficult then for the courts to be able to identify where they do have legitimate claims or complaints or defences and to be able to deal with those claims on the merits," he said. "We do our best to get behind it, to find out what the real issues are, but it can be very difficult if a person is resistant to any kind of interaction or exchange with our current system." Premier Roger Cook also expressed his concerns about the growing group. "I think they represent a significant threat to both social cohesion in Western Australia and also the rule of law," he said. "The police do everything that they can to monitor those who think that they're above the law, that they have their own law to implement separate from the rest of the community. "We intervene when we see laws broken. We make sure that we do everything we can to ensure that they don't represent a risk to the community." Above policing and trying to support individual cases through the legal system, Justice Quinlan said institutions which sovereign citizens did not trust had a role to play too. "It's important that the institutions themselves respect one another, that the governments respect the courts, courts respect governments, and the different roles of different institutions within our society are properly understood," he said. "Because that level of trust and confidence which, if you like, the sovereign citizen does not have, really comes from the top down, that all of us are responsible for understanding and for supporting our institutions of government, be they the executive government, the parliaments or the courts." Justice Quinlan said while that was more under threat in other parts in the world, Australia was not immune. "In a world with a lot of social media content where ideas like this can disseminate very rapidly and very broadly, it's important for us to be vigilant about ensuring that our systems of government are understood and that we do have confidence in them," he said. "I still like to think that in Western Australia and in Australia more broadly there is good community understanding and acceptance of both the courts and the other arms of government. "But we can never be complacent about that, because we see in other parts of the world when respect for the rule of law breaks down, very quickly everything else breaks down as well. "So, remain confident but vigilant that these are challenges that our community faces." Western Australia's most senior judge also urged people to look at non-lawyers trying to offer legal advice with a critical eye. "If you are involved in legal proceedings or you're caught up in legal proceedings, go to a community legal centre, seek out some legal assistance," he said. "If something on the internet or on social media about dealing with the courts looks too good to be true, it probably is and it's probably not going to do you any help to be going down that route."
SBS Australia
4 days ago
- SBS Australia
Michael's daughter died while riding an e-scooter. He's calling for better regulation
The topic of e-scooters is a difficult one for Michael Seculovic. Earlier this month, he marked what would have been his daughter Ava's 15th birthday. She died last year after being hit by a car while riding her e-scooter across a busy road in Perth. In her dad's mind, Ava will always remain that 13-year-old girl on the precipice of taking on the world. She had recently started at a new high school, which Seculovic was chuffed about, as it was the same school he had attended. "She was a bright, beautiful girl," he tells SBS News. Michael Seculovic's daughter Ava was 13 years old when she died from severe head injuries sustained in an accident on her e-scooter. Source: Supplied / Michael Seculovic "She was very friendly; it didn't matter who it was, when anyone came up to her and said 'hello, how are you?' she always replied with 'good, thank you. How are you?' "She was just beautiful." Ava had received her scooter as a Christmas present just a few months before the accident. Seculovic says he had nagged her and her friends to wear helmets many times, as required by state law in Western Australia, but it was often a struggle. "It wasn't from a lack of trying, I had went and purchased another helmet, as she had said that she didn't like the one she had," he says. "But also, no one else was wearing a helmet, and like many girls, they are worried about their hair." Tragically, Ava wasn't wearing one at the time of the accident. Seculovic has spent the past year reflecting on the regulations around e-scooters. He admits he wasn't fully aware of the legalities before his daughter's death. I was just going about everyday life, that was not really ever in front of me to know about. For young people, e-rideables, such as e-scooters and e-bikes, represent an affordable and accessible means of transport — they are significantly cheaper than a car and can be used without a licence. Seculovic says he felt it offered his daughter some much-needed independence. "It was her second year of high school, and she just wanted to have that sort of independence teenagers want," he says. But as the devices have become more and more popular in Australia, so has debate over how to regulate them. Are e-bikes and e-scooters safe? Parliamentary inquiries into e-rideables are taking place in WA and Queensland, following a rise in related accidents. Both will consider the benefits of the devices against issues regarding safety, regulation, enforcement and penalties. The NSW government announced this week it is considering a temporary ban on the devices on public transport, pending community feedback, following two incidents in NSW and Victoria earlier this year, which involved e-rideable batteries catching fire. Deputy director of Monash University's Accident Research Centre (ARC), Professor Jennie Oxley, says incident rates have risen as the number of e-rideable users has grown. 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As more people use e-scooters, the incidents related to riding them have increased. Source: AAP / Luka Coch The submission noted that common injuries include fractures, dislocations and head trauma. Seculovic's daughter Ava suffered serious head injuries as a result of her accident in March 2024, which she later succumbed to. While laws in WA ban those under 16 from riding e-scooters on roads in Australia, it is not uncommon to see children in their early teens out and about in the suburbs of Perth on e-scooters. Growing popularity of e-rideables Despite the risks, experts say e-rideables are here to stay. A 2023 report by cycling advocacy group WeRide Australia found that 3.6 million Australians had used an e-scooter in 2022 and that per capita usage was highest in WA and the ACT. The increasing affordability of e-scooters in recent years has also fuelled growth in the number of Australians using them. While it is illegal to travel on an e-scooter with more than one person, it has become common practice to do so in some parts of Australia. Source: Getty / Steve Waters While some high-end models may set you back around $5,000, a new e-scooter can cost as little as $500. Oxley says while e-rideables are largely used by people commuting to and from work or study, gig-economy workers, such as food and mail delivery drivers, also rely heavily on them. Around one in five Australians used an e-scooter in 2022. Source: SBS News Estimates compiled by University of Sydney professor of transport management Stephen Greaves indicate that Australians own about 400,000 personal e-scooters and mobility devices. This is in addition to the thousands of e-mobility devices operating via share-ride schemes, which have been implemented in every capital city and across more than 25 local government areas. Greaves says they are a "genuine alternative to motorised transport". "E-mobility devices, including scooters, open up the possibility for many of those trips that are maybe 2-5 kilometres, where you think, 'why are people driving cars for such distances?'" he says. Australian Electric Vehicle Association president Chris Jones says the boom in electric personal mobility is transformative and should be supported. "These are some of the most accessible and affordable electric vehicles in the world, and they take up a fraction of the space of a car," he says. We should be encouraging their uptake with sensible regulation. A submission to the Queensland inquiry from Brisbane West Bicycle User Group said that Queensland and the Brisbane City Council local government area are "failing to capitalise on the congestion-busting benefits of micromobility, and particularly the increased accessibility" afforded by e-mobility options. It pointed out that in Brisbane, 56 per cent of all trips across all modes of transport between 2021 and 2024 were less than 5km in distance and that 75 per cent of trips under 5km were taken by car. The group asked the inquiry to consider the benefits of e-mobility devices and their potential to replace the "second or third family car", which would "have significant environmental benefits, both in terms of day-to-day emissions and pollution, but also reduced demand for road space and parking..." Inconsistent regulation For the benefits of e-rideables to be fully realised, experts say better regulation needs to be enforced. Laws vary state by state and are overdue for an update, says Greaves. When e-scooters first entered the Australian market around 20 years ago, they fell into grey regulatory territory, he explains, as their integration into transport systems and roads had not been planned for. "The origins of these rules came originally from AustRoads [a national agency representing state transport departments] ... They were talking about kids' scooters and skateboards and all those sorts of things," Greaves says. "They classified them as recreational devices: the terminology was a 'wheeled recreational device' and it was then up to each state to figure out how they were going to manage that." Greaves says the variation between states has implications for whether devices can be used on roads or footpaths, age limits and registration requirements. "For example, in NSW, we're not sure where scooters belong — some people consider them a kid's toy, others think of them as more of a moped. But, of course, they are not roadworthy as a motorcycle, so are illegal." While the NSW and Northern Territory governments have implemented laws that prohibit using personal e-scooters on public roads and footpaths, most other states permit their use under certain circumstances. A driver's licence is not needed to ride an e-scooter in jurisdictions where they are permitted in public areas, but riders often need to be above a certain age. In WA and Victoria, riders must be at least 16 years of age to use an e-scooter in public spaces. Queensland allows those aged 12-15 to ride them as long as they are accompanied by an adult, while the ACT does not stipulate a minimum age; however, those under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Helmets are generally required by law for public use, and certain activities, such as riding with more than one person or with a mobile phone in one hand, are not allowed. There are also variations in enforceable speed limits. Riders in WA can travel on footpaths as long as they do not exceed 10km/h, while in Tasmania, it is 15km/h. It is illegal to ride an e-scooter on a footpath in Victoria. In some states, the maximum speed for e-scooters in public areas is 20km/h; elsewhere, it is capped at 25km/h. Riding context and speed Greaves argues that regulation needs to be "context dependent" and take into account riding locations. "In the inner city of Sydney, we have a decent bike network, and we have relatively low usage of those bike lanes. They should be allowed and that's what people expressed when we surveyed on this," he says. "I think they're alright on local roads, where we are moving to the 40km/h default speed limits. I don't think they should be on main roads. "Outside of the CBD, I think they should be allowed on footpaths. You go out into the suburbs and you might see two people walking on a footpath, [so] you've got this perfect infrastructure for e-scooters; let's use it for e-scooters and make it a shared path." Transport management professor Stephen Greaves says the local context needs to be considered when it comes to e-scooter regulations. Source: Supplied He says local governments should be engaged to help determine safe and appropriate contexts for e-rideables — but also speeds. "Obviously, the state tries to set blanket rules around everything, but at the end of the day, the local jurisdiction needs to tweak those rules depending on the situation." In March, Queensland Police warned consumers to be aware that some e-scooters being sold in Queensland exceeded the legal speed limits, which put them in a different category to personal mobility devices. Greaves says while imposing limitations on the speed of e-scooters might help to ensure those sold on the market comply with legal limits, he is aware that some e-scooter owners in Australia are making alterations to increase the speed of their devices. "It's very easy to override that," he says. LISTEN TO He adds that implementing very low speed limits for e-scooters could take away their "intrinsic appeal" in helping people get from A to B faster than it would take to walk. It may also affect device operation. "If you get below about 10 km/h it's actually quite hard to control it, it gets wobbly. There is a sort of sweet spot which is about 15km /h." But Jennie Oxley from Monash points out that is the increased speed of e-scooters over walking as well as the slower interactions with traffic that add to the risk of injury. Compliance of e-mobility devices One of the recommendations to come from a 2024 report from Monash University's ARC on injuries associated with e-scooters, e-bikes and other e-mobility devices was to "increase police enforcement" in an effort to deter "noncompliant riding behaviours". SBS News contacted police departments in each Australian state and territory to obtain recent data on e-ridable-related infringements; however, only WA and the ACT provided them. Raw numbers in the nation's capital reflect similar patterns to those in WA. WA officers recorded 303 infringements in regard to e-mobility devices between January 2024 and 7 October 2024 (when responsibility of collection of data moved to the Department of Transport) and a total of 510 infringements in 2023. About 85 per cent of those were related to helmets, and about 5 per cent were in relation to speeding. Laws around the use of e-scooters and other e-rideables differ from state to state. Source: Getty / BJP7images A WA Police spokesperson told SBS News: "As with any vehicle, speed, drug and alcohol use and a lack of helmet use are contributing factors to the causes of serious injury or death involving ERDs [e-rideable devices]. "While infringements are an appropriate deterrent, they are only issued when the irresponsible or reckless rider is caught at that moment in time. The most effective way to deter irresponsible, dangerous and reckless operation of ERDs is to seize and destroy the vehicles." In March, Queensland Police made a public appeal for people to take personal mobility device laws seriously, noting that between November 2022 and December 2024, more than 2,700 infringements were issued to riders for illegal road use. While e-bikes and e-motorbikes are categorised differently from e-scooters, there have been calls to mandate their registration and to legalise their use on roads. Greaves says research has shown community support for some sort of registration, insurance and licensing of e-mobility devices. "There are a number of considerations to take into account, but such measures could potentially encourage more responsible ownership and riding," he says. 'It really sucks' Seculovic remembers refusing to wear a helmet when riding his bike as a child, but strongly encourages anyone using an e-scooter to wear one. He says parents with teens in particular face a challenge around e-scooter use. "If you don't let them have one, do you then run the risk that they will then jump on the back of someone else's anyway?" he says. Despite his personal grief over his daughter's death, Seculovic says banning scooters outright is not realistic. Look at all the road accidents, you can't just ban cars, can you? When a workmate recently expressed feeling conflicted about whether to allow their son to get an e-scooter, his only advice was: "Go take him down to Wanneroo Road [northern Perth], and see Ava's cross." "That's the end result, which could happen. "It really sucks, it's the worst thing in the world, but it's reality, and that's a hard thing."
The Australian
5 days ago
- The Australian
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare launches compliance action against 30 childcare centres
The federal government has launched compliance action against 30 childcare centres as it moves desperately to ramp up child safety measures in the wake of jarring allegations of widespread failures across the embattled sector. Education Minister Jason Clare, speaking on Friday, said the 30 centres had failed to meet National Quality Standards and he would withdraw funding from them if they did not lift their performance over the next six months. 'We have taken action swiftly under the new legislation to begin rebuilding confidence in a system that parents need to have confidence in,' he said. 'This is not about closing centres down, it's about lifting standards up. 'Over the next six months, these centres will need to lift their game or they will face further consequences including the cutting off of funding.' The centres, which have not been named, now have 48 hours to notify parents of the action. Not meeting quality and safety standards can include failures to provide for play area safety, hygiene, staff training or supervision. The compliance blitz follows the passage of legislation through federal parliament last month giving the government the power to strip funding from centres that fail to meet basic standards. Education Minister Jason Clare has threatened to cut off funding from 30 childcare centres. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman Centres can also be stripped of their childcare subsidy approval. Early Childhood Education Minister Jess Walsh said the government would put the 'safety and wellbeing' of children 'first and foremost'. 'Today's action should signal to all early childhood education and care providers that the National Quality Standards are not optional and that all services must be up to scratch,' she said. The country is reeling from multiple allegations of shocking and widespread failures in child safety across the sector. On July 1, Victoria Police announced horrific child sex abuse allegations against child care worker Joshua Dale Brown, alleging he had offended against eight children while working for the Creative Gardens Point Cook centre between October 2021 and February 2024. Mr Brown worked in at least 23 centres across Victoria between January 2017 and May 2025 and he held a valid Working With Children Check (WWCC). Later that month, it was revealed the Australian Federal Police had charged David William James with abusing children at six after-school care centres between 2021 and 2024. Alleged child sex abuser Joshua Brown worked at several centres over between 2017 and 2025. Picture Supplied. Dramatic reforms are now expected for the sector. On Friday, state and federal attorney-generals met to discuss how to toughen up safety. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has promised a 'banned in one, banned in all' system – in which a person banned from holding a WWCC in one state cannot obtain one in another. Under the changes, criminal histories will be updated and shared in real time between jurisdictions and the criteria that determines who is able to obtain a WWCC will be strengthened. 'It is notable that nefarious individuals have been shopping around the working with children check system and exploiting loopholes,' Ms Rowland said. Ms Rowland said the new national system would be operational by the end of the year. Both the Victorian and NSW governments have also pledged to ban personal mobile devices from centres. Major providers, including G8 Education and Affinity, have pledged to install CCTV into their centres. Duncan Evans Reporter Duncan Evans is a reporter for News Corp's NewsWire service, based in Adelaide. Before NewsWire, he worked as a resources and politics reporter for The Daily Mercury in Mackay, Queensland and as a reporter at CQ Today, an independent newspaper based in Rockhampton. He was raised in Emerald and Brisbane and studied English Literature and American Studies at the University of Sydney. He began his career in journalism working for the Jakarta Post in Indonesia for over two years as an editor, translator and writer. He is fluent in Indonesian. @Duncanevans01 Duncan Evans
