The 24-year-old student who killed 13 people at Prague University on Thursday, December 21, committed suicide, Czech police announced.
The assailant of the attack at Prague University on Thursday December 21 committed suicide according to information from the Czech police communicated Friday December 22. The 24-year-old history student killed 13 people in the worst mass shooting in the Czech Republic in its modern history. Czech authorities also report 25 injured. “We know the identity of the 14 dead. They are 13 victims of the mad gunman and himself,” Interior Minister Vit Rakusan told Czech public television. The circumstances of the assailant’s death were not known before Friday, it was not yet clear whether the shooter was shot by the police or killed himself. Czech media Lidové Noviny reports that the young person suffered from psychological problems.
The killing appears to have no link with “international terrorism”, as Interior Minister Vit Rakusan assured. Lidové Noviny relays for its part that at the time of the attack at the university, David K. was already wanted by the police because he had killed his father in his native village. Also mentioned is the fact that he could have planted a homemade bomb in this same village before going to the capital. Bomb that ultimately didn’t work.
“At 12:45 p.m., police were informed that a 24-year-old man was supposed to leave the village of Hostoun for Prague, claiming he wanted to commit suicide. A dead man was found in the village from which he left, it was the father of the attacker,” police chief Martin Vondrasek explained at a press conference, affirming in passing that it would be a “premeditated” act. If the shooter’s motivations remain unclear at this stage, the Czech media Lidové Noviny reports that David K. allegedly used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to shoot the students. The shooting in Prague is the deadliest in the history of the Czech Republic to date.
Terrible news coming to us from Prague. A shooter is said to have left several dead and several injured near the beautiful Charles University. My thoughts to the Czech people struck by this tragedy and to the many French students there pic.twitter.com/BhNqIjNNYN
— Frédéric Petit (@fpetitAN) December 21, 2023
The Modem deputy for French people living abroad residing in the Czech Republic, Frédéric Petit, posted images online to reflect the climate of fear in Prague. Students were holed up in classrooms before evacuation operations were carried out. “They evacuated us all, it was terribly scary, there were a lot of police everywhere with machine guns shouting at us to run away,” Klára, a student, told the daily MFDnes.