[ad_1] Christmas has turned into a tragedy for families in Prague this year after a mass shooting at a university took the lives of 14 people on Thu
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Christmas has turned into a tragedy for families in Prague this year after a mass shooting at a university took the lives of 14 people on Thursday.
The lone gunman behind the Czech Republic’s worst-ever mass shooting has been identified as 24-year-old David Kozak.
He opened fire at Prague’s Charles University, where he was a student, killing 14 and injuring 24 people, including three foreigners.
The heavily armed student then proceeded to end his own life soon after.
According to police, he is believed to have killed his father prior to the massacre in a village west of Prague, where the family lived.
He then left for the capital.
Police said the gunman also appeared to have killed a randomly selected young man and his two-month-old daughter in a Prague forest on December 15.
“A ballistic analysis proved the gun used in the … forest was identical with a gun found at the university gunman’s home,” police said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
A manhunt was launched, but the police appeared to have missed the gunman at the university, searching the Faculty of Arts building where he was expected to attend a lecture, while the gunman walked into the faculty’s main building nearby.
Footage shows armed officers entering the building, with the public fleeing. The initial belief was that the gunman was on the upper floors, but officials later redirected the search to the roof.
The gunman shot and injured three people outside the building with a long-ranged weapon. Police fired back, and as they approached, the gunman took his own life.
His body was found during the building search and “piles of ammunition” were discovered at the scene.
Prague’s chief of police Martin Vondrasek said the killer was previously known to police and had “an enormous arsenal of weapons and ammunition” at his disposal.
The gunman appeared to have been inspired by a similar shooting in Russia, police said, citing his social media account.
Since Thursday’s shooting, police have arrested four people who had either threatened similar attacks or expressed support for the killings, the country’s Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said in a statement.
Saturday was announced as a national day of mourning across the Czech Republic, as flags flew half-mast, church bells rang, and masses were held across the country in remembrance of the victims of the deadly shooting at Prague’s Charles University.
President Petr Pavel and other senior politicians attended, and many in the cathedral were in tears.
President Pavel said there was “helpless anger at the unnecessary loss of so many young lives”.
“I would like to express my sincere condolences to all relatives of the victims, to all who were at this tragic incident,” he said.
Faculty of Arts students brought eighteen roses to the altar — 14 for the university victims, one for the gunman and three for other people he had killed.
“The life of each person in its uniqueness enriches and becomes a part of the lives of others, and its loss is therefore irreplaceable,” Charles University rector Milena Kralickova said at the mass, her voice breaking.
The choir singing at the mass was led by David Eben, a musician and musicology teacher at the Faculty of Arts.
His department lost its director, Lenka Hlavkova, a mother of two, in the attack.
Sympathy poured in from across the world with Pope Francis, US President Joe Biden, Penny Wong, Britain’s King Charles and many others sending their condolences.
The Czech Republic is the world’s 12th-safest country, according to the 2023 Global Peace Index, and mass gun violence is rare.
This week’s shooting in Prague’s UNESCO-listed historic centre was the deadliest since the Czech Republic emerged as an independent state in 1993.
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