GRAZ, Austria (AP) — A former student opened fire at a school in Austria’s second-biggest city on Tuesday, killing nine people and wounding at least 12 others before taking his own life, authorities said.
There was no immediate information on the motive of the 21-year-old man, who had no previous police record. He used two weapons, which he was believed to have owned legally, police said.
“Today is a dark day in the history of our country,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker told reporters in Graz, a city of about 300,000 people in southeastern Austria.
He called it “a national tragedy that shocks us deeply” and said there would be three days of national mourning, with the Austrian flag lowered to half-staff at official buildings. A national minute of silence is to be held on Wednesday morning in memory of the victims.
Special forces were among those sent to the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school, about a kilometer (over half a mile) from Graz’s historic center, after calls at 10 a.m. reporting shots the building. More than 300 police officers were sent to the school, which was evacuated. Footage from the scene showed students filing out quickly past armed officers.
Police said security was restored in 17 minutes.
The assailant, who acted alone, was a 21-year-old Austrian man who lived near Graz, police said. His name wasn't released.
Regional police chief Gerald Ortner said two firearms — a long gun and a handgun — were used in the shooting and recovered from the scene, and that the assailant was apparently legally in possession of them. The man took his own life in a bathroom.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said the gunman had been a student at the school and hadn't completed his studies. He didn't specify when the man left the school or at what age.
Karner said six of the dead were female and three male, but didn't give further information. Austria’s Red Cross said it had deployed 65 ambulances to the scene and 158 emergency staffers were helping treat the injured. In addition, 40 specially trained psychologists were counseling students and parents. The Red Cross also called on locals to come forward and donate blood.
Metin Özden was in his kebab restaurant near the school when he first heard police cars sped by, and then a police helicopter above. He told the Krone newspaper: “I knew something bad had happened. … I’ve never seen so many emergency services in my entire life.” He also described to the paper seeing parents walking past his restaurant and crying on the way to the school.
Tuesday’s violence appeared to be the deadliest attack in Austria’s post-World War II history.
In 2020, four people were killed in Vienna and the suspect, a sympathizer of the Islamic State group, also died, in a shooting. More than 20 other people, including a police officer, were wounded.
In June 2015, a man killed three people and injured more than 30 when he drove through a crowd in downtown Graz with an SUV.
Austria, which has a strong tradition of hunting, has some of the more liberal gun laws in the European Union.
Some weapons, such as rifles and shotguns that must be reloaded manually after each shot, can be purchased in Austria from the age of 18 without a permit. Gun dealers only need to check if there’s no weapons ban on the buyer and the weapon gets registered in the central weapons register.
Other weapons, such as repeating shotguns or semi-automatic firearms, are more difficult to acquire — buyers need a gun ownership card and a firearms pass.
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Moulson, Kirsten Grieshaber and Stefanie Dazio contributed to this report from Berlin and Vanessa Gera from Warsaw, Poland.
Philipp Jenne And Geir Moulson, The Associated Press
