Austrian police search for answers after mass shooting in school

Austrian authorities were searching on Wednesday for clues as to why a 21-year-old gunman shot dead 10 people in a rampage at his former high school before killing himself, in one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the country's modern history.

Police said the man had acted alone, armed with a shotgun and a pistol. They are scouring his home and the internet to find out why he opened fire at the school in Austria's second city of Graz on Tuesday, before shooting himself in a bathroom.

Austria came to a standstill at 10am on Wednesday to commemorate the dead with one minute's silence. Churches rang funeral bells, including St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where about 900 public transport vehicles halted for a minute.

Public broadcaster ORF paused all radio and TV programmes for one minute, with TV showing images of candles and a message to say the country was mourning the victims.

The incident is hard to take in, said a religious studies teacher at the school, Paul Nitsche, who left his classroom before the gunman tried to enter, and briefly saw him trying to shoot the lock off another door.

“This is something I couldn't even imagine before,” he told ORF. “That's what the situation was like as I ran down the stairwell. I thought to myself: 'This isn't real.'”

Some Austrian media have said the young man, who has not been formally identified, apparently felt bullied, though police have not confirmed this. Authorities said the suspect had not completed his studies at the school.

Police said he had left a farewell note which did not reveal the motive for the attack and that a pipe bomb found at his home was not functional.

Ennio Resnik, a pupil at the school, said students and teachers needed time to come to terms with what had happened, and asked that they be left in peace for a few days.

“It's surreal, you can't describe or really understand it,” he said, speaking to reporters outside an events centre near the school where students were being offered counselling.

Some of the students gathered there cried, while others held each other.

Austrian news agency APA said the youngest victim was 14, with the rest of the slain pupils aged 15-17. All the dead barring one Pole were Austrian citizens, it said.

SECOND SCHOOL THREATENED

Franz Ruf, director-general of public security, said investigations into the motive were moving swiftly.

“We don't want to speculate at this point,” he told ORF on Tuesday night.

Police were on the alert for potential copycat attacks and had received a threat against another school in Graz late on Tuesday, he said.

In Tuesday's attack, about 17 minutes elapsed between the first emergency calls received by police about shots being fired at the school and the scene being declared safe, Ruf said.

Austria — though normally a safe and peaceful country with low levels of crime — has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe, says the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project. The attack sparked calls, including from Graz's mayor, for gun laws to be tightened.

Police said the guns used were in the suspect's possession legally, and Ruf said that while Austrian gun laws are strict, the case was being looked into. “If there are any loopholes, they need to be closed,” he said.

Details of the attack have emerged slowly.

Police said victims were found both outside and inside the school. About a dozen people were injured in the attack, some seriously.

Austria has declared three days of national mourning, with the shootings prompting a rare show of solidarity among often bitterly divided political parties.

Parents of pupils and neighbours of the school struggled to make sense of the event. Hundreds came together in Graz's main square on Tuesday evening to remember the victims. Others left flowers and lit candles outside the school. Dozens also queued to donate blood for the survivors.

Reuters