Twenty-five others wounded in attack at Charles University as local media name suspect as David Koz\u00e1k
\nCzech
\nThe 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\u2019shistory.
\nThe death toll from Thursday\u2019s shooting at Charles University in the city centre stood at 14, the interior minister, Vit Raku\u0161an, 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.
\nThe city\u2019s police chief, Martin Vondr\u00e1\u0161ek, on Thursday described the shooting as \u201ca premeditated violent attack\u201d.
\nLaw enforcement agencies on Friday confirmed the 24-year-old suspect\u2019s name as David K. He has been named by local media as David Koz\u00e1k, a student at the philosophy department building where the shooting took place.
\nVondr\u00e1\u0161ek 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.
\nThe police chief described the suspect as an excellent student with no criminal record. Police said the suspect shot himself yesterday when confronted by officers.
\nVondr\u00e1\u0161ek said the attacker \u201cgot inspired by a similar terrible event abroad\u201d, without giving more details.
\nRaku\u0161an said there was no indication the killings, which took place at the university\u2019s faculty of arts building, had \u201cany connection with international terrorism\u201d.
\nThe shooting took place near a busy tourist area in Prague\u2019s Old Town, a minute\u2019s 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.
\nJakob Weizman, a journalist and master\u2019s student, described scenes of panic inside and outside the university. \u201cI think the shooter went from inside of the faculty to the outside to the balcony where he was shooting on people from outside,\u201d the 25-year-old said. \u201cThere were people trying to escape over the ledge.\u201d
\nPolice showed body-camera footage of special police units storming the university building, searching corridors and rooms and administering first aid to victims.
\nCrowds of mourners came to pay respect to the victims of Friday\u2019s 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.
\n\u201cEveryone at school is really scared,\u201d Tereza, a former Charles University student who travelled to Prague from Brno where she is pursuing further studies, told the Guardian.
\n\u201cEveryone was completely shocked yesterday. There\u2019s a feeling that schools are no longer safe. We are actually terrified.\u201d
\nStanding 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. \u201cWe decided to stop going,\u201d said Emma, 18. \u201cIt would be really unpleasant and scary to go back and study in that environment.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just so awful knowing that something like that can happen here,\u201d said her friend Alena, 17.
\nAnother student, Bara, said: \u201cI hope this is an isolated incident, something like what happened in Norway,\u201d she said, referencing the 2011 attack by the far-right terrorist Anders Breivik. \u201cI really hope we won\u2019t have to be afraid to go to school from now on.\u201d
\nCzech police said they were investigating several cases where people on social media either applauded Thursday\u2019s mass shooting or threatened to continue the carnage. In one case, an Instagram user posted a photo of an assault weapon with the words \u201cMy turn\u201d.
\nThe police said they possessed \u201crelevant information\u201d 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.
\nPolice said the suspect owned a number of firearms.
\nGun 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.
\nIn 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.
\nThe Czech president said he was shocked by the events of Thursday and gave his condolences to the families and relatives of the victims.
\nEuropean leaders also sent their condolences. \u201cShocked by the senseless violence of the shooting that claimed several lives today in Prague,\u201d the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on X. \u201cWe stand and mourn with you.\u201d
\nThe first victim of the mass shooting was identified as Lenka Hl\u00e1vkov\u00e1, the head of the Institute of Musicology at the university\u2019s Faculty of Arts. The department said in a post on Facebook: \u201cWe express our deepest condolences to all the bereaved, especially to the family. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely cruel news for all of us. Let\u2019s stay supporting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twenty-five others wounded in attack at Charles University as local media name suspect as David Koz\u00e1k Czech 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\u2019shistory. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-376187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n