BERLIN — A gunman killed nine people Tuesday morning after opening fire at a school in the southern Austrian city of Graz.
Police first responded to reports of gunfire at 10 a.m. local time at the Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium Dreierschützengasse, a secondary school in the northwest of the city.
They later found that the gunman had shot and killed nine people and injured 12 others.
Police say they later found the suspected shooter, a 21-year-old man who was a former student at the school, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gun wound in a school restroom.
They say the shooter acted alone and that he brought two guns with him to the school — a rifle and a handgun.
BERLIN — A gunman opened fire at a school in the southern Austrian city of Graz on Tuesday morning, killing nine people. According to the police, the shooter is also dead and is thought to have committed suicide.
Reports of gunfire were first received by police at 10 a.m. A. In the northwest of the city, at the Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium Dreierschützengasse, is local time. Twelve people were injured and nine people were killed by the gunman, they discovered later.
According to police, there were three male and six female victims among the dead, but they did not say how many of the victims were teachers or students or how old they were.
Police arrived and evacuated the school just minutes after the shooting began. There were 160 paramedics and 300 police officers present at the scene overall.
According to police, they later discovered the suspected shooter, a 21-year-old man who had previously attended the school, dead in a restroom from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gun wound. They claim that the shooter was a lone individual who entered the school armed with a handgun and a rifle.
They only stated that the suspect was unknown to the police and that he had a license for the firearms, without providing his name or any other information.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker stated during a press conference in Graz in the afternoon, “There are no words to describe the pain, the disbelief, and the grief that all of Austria feels right now.”. “In horror, our nation has gone silent. “.”.
Even though mass shootings are extremely uncommon in this nation, Stocker called for three days of national mourning.
With an estimated 30 firearms per 100 people, Austria’s 9 million residents have one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe. The possession of revolvers, pistols, and even semi-automatic weapons is permitted as long as applicants obtain the necessary permits and licenses, but machine guns and pump action guns are prohibited.
