15 killed as gunman goes on rampage in Prague varsity, shot

PRAGUE, December 21

A gunman killed at least 15 people and wounded 24 others at a Prague university on Thursday before he was “eliminated”, marking the country’s worst-ever mass shooting.

The Czech police responded to the shooting at Charles University’s faculty of arts building in Jan Palach Square shortly after 3 pm (1400 GMT). The police said the father of the shooter – a student at the faculty – was found dead earlier on Thursday.

Past incidents

• Gun crime is relatively rare in the Czech Republic. In December 2019, a 42-year-old gunman killed six persons at a hospital waiting room in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava before fleeing and fatally shooting himself, the police said
• In 2015, a man fatally shot eight persons and then killed himself at a restaurant in Uhersky Brod

“We always thought that this was a thing that did not concern us. Now it turns out that, unfortunately, our world is also changing and the problem of the individual shooter is emerging here as well,” Prague Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda said.

Petr Nedoma, director of the Rudolfinum Gallery at a concert hall across Palach Square, told Czech TV he saw the shooter.

“I saw a young person on the gallery who had some weapon in his hand, like and automatic weapon, and shooting toward the Manes Bridge. Repeatedly, with some interruptions, then I saw as he shot, put hands up and threw the weapon down on the street, it lay there on the pedestrian crossing,” he said.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala cancelled his trip to the east of the country and was en route to Prague. Gun crime is relatively rare in the Czech Republic. — Reuters