Prague, Dec. 22 (EFE) – When a history student at Prague’s Charles University entered the Faculty of Philosophy building on Thursday afternoon and fired indiscriminately, police were already waiting for him at another university building where he was scheduled to have classes, suspecting him of three other murders committed along the previous week.
On Thursday the man killed 14 people and wounded 25 others inside the university and then climbed to the roof to shoot at bystanders, wounding a couple from the United Arab Emirates and a Dutch citizen, before killing himself when police surrounded him.
The gunman, identified by police as David Kozák, 24, had no criminal record, but authorities were already on his trail as a suspect in the Dec. 15 deaths of a 32-year-old man and his two-month-old daughter, who were found dead in the Klanovice forest west of Prague, and the death Wednesday of a man believed to be his own father in the town of Hostoun, 35 kilometers west of Prague.
“We were only a few days away from preventing this tragic event that happened yesterday,” Prague criminal police chief Aleš Strach told Radio Prague.
Police had posted a guard at a university building where the assailant was expected to attend classes Thursday afternoon, but instead he went to the main building of the philosophy faculty, where he committed the massacre.
Police are investigating a series of posts on the social network Telegram written in Russian by someone using the same name as the perpetrator about committing a school massacre.
The person reportedly wrote that he was inspired by a recent school shooting in Russia by a female student.
Reports circulated on social media that the shooter’s family was of Russian origin, but Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said on Friday that he was Czech and was raised in a Czech family.
Rakusan also defended the work of the police, saying the massacre was difficult to predict.
“It’s a type of attack that can hardly be prevented,” the minister told a news conference.
Authorities have ruled out any links between the attacker and terrorist groups.
The gunman had a license for eight weapons, including two long guns and one with a telescopic sight, which is believed to be the one he used in the attack.
The Czech Republic has more relaxed rules on gun ownership than the rest of Europe, even guaranteeing in its constitution the right to protect oneself and others with weapons.
Parliament is considering a legal reform that would empower the police to confiscate guns from people suspected of radical positions and require dealers to provide information on atypical purchases because of their volume or because of suspicions about customers.
The number of ed firearms in the Czech Republic has risen by 85% in recent years and now stands at almost one million, one for every ten inhabitants.
The interior minister on Friday called on the press and the public “not to play along or give publicity to these acts”, arguing that “this is what the aggressor is looking for”.
Rakusan also reported that nine of the 25 injured, who were hospitalized in serious condition, have been stabilized and the government declared Dec. 23 a day of mourning for the victims of the shooting, the worst in the history of the Czech Republic. EFE
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