14 killed in Prague university: How common are school shootings in Europe?

On Thursday, the Czech Republic witnessed its bloodiest shooting in history, dating back 30 years. A gunman has shot dead 14 people and injured another 25 at a university in Prague. According to the police, the 24-year-old gunman was also “eliminated” following the shooting at Charles University in the historic centre of the capital. The shooting began around 15:00 local time (07:30 IST) on Jan Palach Square at the university’s Faculty of Arts building. In video footage shared on social media, students were seen hanging to the wall of their university building, with some jumping to safety from one of the building’s ledges several floors up. The gunshots can also be heard. The gunman, who has been identified as David Kozak in local media, reportedly assassinated his father before killing his classmates. He was a student at Prague’s Charles University studying Polish history. Police believe Kozák, shot himself after exchanging fire with officers on the building’s walkway, possibly after being injured. An autopsy has not yet been completed, but authorities believe the “devastating injuries” indicated suicide. He had many guns, and what he did was a “well thought out, horrible act,” according to authorities as reported by The Telegraph. [caption id=“attachment_13534282” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] People stand outside the building of Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in downtown Prague, Czech Republic. AP[/caption] In the days leading up to the attacks, Kozak allegedly wrote social media posts in which he indulged in dark fantasies of suicide and mass murder. According to police, the gunman was motivated by “a terrible event abroad.” In one post, Kozak cited a 14-year-old Russian school shooter, who killed one classmate and wounded five others, as an inspiration. The Czech Republic’s interior minister said police were looking into whether the gunman was responsible for the deaths of two persons in a forest near Prague last week. Such school shootings are far more uncommon in Europe than in the United States. Here are the continent’s deadliest school shootings that were not linked to terrorism in the last 25 years: On 3 May, a 13-year-old gunned down eight fellow classmates and a security guard at an elementary school in downtown Belgrade. Six children and a teacher were also injured. The shooter contacted the police, who arrested him. An 18-year-old gunman on 17 October, 2018 killed 20 people including nine children and injured dozens more before killing himself at a technical college where he was a student in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Armed with a shotgun and an explosive device, Ilnaz Galyaviev, then 19, opened fire on 11 May, 2021 at School Number 175 in the western Russian city of Kazan, killing nine people, including seven children. In 2023 he was sentenced to life in prison. On 20 September 2021, a student dressed in black tactical clothing and helmet armed with a hunting rifle swept through Perm State University buildings killing six people, mostly women, and injuring two dozen others. The gunman was shot by law enforcement officers as he was apprehended and taken to hospital. A 19-year-old former student, apparently in revenge for having been expelled, gunned down 16 people including 12 teachers and two students at a school in Erfurt on 26 April, 2002. He then killed himself. On 11 March, 2009 nine pupils, three teachers and three passers-by were killed in a school shooting at Winnenden in southern Germany by a former pupil who then killed himself. On 7 November, 2007 an 18-year-old student opened fire in a school in southern Finland killing five boys, two girls and the headmistress before turning his gun on himself. On 23 September, 2008 eleven people, including the gunman, died in a massacre at a training school at Kauhajoki, Finland. With inputs from AFP