The Czech Republic has declared Saturday a day of mourning after a 24-year-old student killed 14 people and wounded 25 others at his Prague university in what is believed to be the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.
The death toll from Thursday’s shooting at Charles University in the city centre stood at 14, the interior minister, Vit Rakušan, said on Czech television on Friday. Authorities said three foreign nationals, two from the United Arab Emirates and one from the Netherlands, were among 25 wounded.
The city’s police chief, Martin Vondrášek, on Thursday described the shooting as “a premeditated violent attack”.
Law enforcement agencies on Friday confirmed the 24-year-old suspect’s name as David K. He has been named by local media as David Kozák, a student at the philosophy department building where the shooting took place.
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Mr Vondrášek said the suspect was believed to have first killed his father, whose body had been found at his home in a town west of Prague, and then continued his attacks at the university.
The police chief described the suspect as an excellent student with no criminal record. Police said the suspect shot himself yesterday when confronted by officers.
Mr Vondrášek said the attacker “got inspired by a similar terrible event abroad”, without giving more details.
Mr Rakušan said there was no indication the killings, which took place at the university’s faculty of arts building, had “any connection with international terrorism”.
The shooting took place near a busy tourist area in Prague’s Old Town, a minute’s walk from the historic Old Town Square. As the attack unfolded, several students posted pictures of doors inside the university barricaded shut. Others clambered on to narrow ledges in a desperate attempt to flee the shooter.
Jakob Weizman, a journalist and master’s student, described scenes of panic inside and outside the university. “I think the shooter went from inside of the faculty to the outside to the balcony where he was shooting on people from outside,” the 25-year-old said. “There were people trying to escape over the ledge.”
Police showed body camera footage of special police units storming the university building, searching corridors and rooms and administering first aid to victims.
Crowds of mourners came to pay respect to the victims of Friday’s shooting, bringing candles and flowers to several makeshift memorials around central Prague. Standing in groups, many were weeping and consoling each other. Many were too devastated to speak and just quietly shook their heads.
“Everyone at school is really scared,” Tereza, a former Charles University student who travelled to Prague from Brno where she is pursuing further studies, told the Guardian.
“Everyone was completely shocked yesterday. There’s a feeling that schools are no longer safe. We are actually terrified.”
Standing nearby, a group of high school students said they had come to support their Czech-language teacher, who is herself a Charles University student. Many said they knew the university building well because they have been taking preparatory courses there. “We decided to stop going,” said Emma (18). “It would be really unpleasant and scary to go back and study in that environment.”
“It’s just so awful knowing that something like that can happen here,” said her friend Alena (17).
Another student, Bara, said: “I hope this is an isolated incident, something like what happened in Norway,” she said, referencing the 2011 attack by the far-right terrorist Anders Breivik. “I really hope we won’t have to be afraid to go to school from now on.”
Czech police said they were investigating several cases where people on social media either applauded Thursday’s mass shooting or threatened to continue the carnage. In one case, an Instagram user posted a photo of an assault weapon with the words: “My turn”.
The police said they possessed “relevant information” that the shooter was also involved in a separate double murder of a man and his two-month-old daughter in the east of Prague earlier this month.
Police said the suspect owned a number of firearms.
Gun crime is relatively rare in the Czech Republic, but the country has been an outlier in Europe because of its efforts to loosen gun laws. The central European country is the only country on the Continent with a legal right to bear arms, but citizens first have to prove their competence through a series of tests before acquiring weapons.
In December 2019, a 42-year-old gunman killed six people at a hospital waiting room in the eastern city of Ostrava, and in 2015 a 63-year-old man shot seven men and a woman dead in the south-eastern town of Uhersky Brod.
The Czech president said he was shocked by the events of Thursday and gave his condolences to the families and relatives of the victims.
European leaders also sent their condolences. “Shocked by the senseless violence of the shooting that claimed several lives today in Prague,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on X. “We stand and mourn with you.”
The first victim of the mass shooting was identified as Lenka Hlávková, the head of the Institute of Musicology at the university’s Faculty of Arts. The department said in a post on Facebook: “We express our deepest condolences to all the bereaved, especially to the family. “It’s extremely cruel news for all of us. Let’s stay supporting each other.” – Guardian