Nine Killed in Finnish School Shooting

Sep 23rd, 2008
The Associated Press
By: Alan Cowell and Graham Bowley

A 22-year-old student at a vocational school in a small, remote town in Finland killed nine people and wounded himself in a mass killing on Tuesday that officials compared to a similar bloodletting last year, the Finnish prime minister said.

The shooting happened during the late morning in the town of Kauhajoki, which has a population of some 14,000 and is located about 180 miles north-west of Helsinki, the capital. It was not immediately clear whether the gunman died of his wounds. The Finnish news agency, STT, reported that the suspected gunman had been taken to Tampere University Hospital with serious self-inflicted injuries after he shot himself.

Reuters quoted a police official as saying there was shooting inside the school building for some time before the student shot himself.

Matti Vanhanen, the Finnish prime minister, speaking at a televised news conference, said a student born in 1986 opened fire and also set fire to part of the school, killing nine people.

'He also shot himself,' Vanhanen said. 'There seem to be similarities' with last year's shooting in Jokela, southern Finland, he said.

Vanhanen did not identify the gunman by name and he was also not named in television footage.

News reports said the shooter carried an automatic weapon and disguised himself by wearing a ski mask.

Television footage showed police vehicles surrounding the school during the shooting, an event that is bound to provoke soul-searching in relatively prosperous Finland.

Gun ownership is widespread in Finland, mainly because of the popularity of hunting. Some 1.6 million weapons are registered as being in private hands in a country with a population of some 5.3 million.

In last year's shooting in Jokela, southern Finland, the shooter preceded his attack by recording a video and broadcasting it on YouTube to make clear what he planned to do.

In that episode, the gunman, identified as Pekka-Eric Auvinen, walked through the corridors of Jokela High School firing into classrooms with a handgun. He died in a hospital after shooting himself in the head, doctors said, according to Reuters.

Reuters said Tuesday that a search of YouTube turned up four videos showing a man dressed in dark colors firing at a shooting range. The man called himself Saari and said he was 22 years old. News reports said he listed his favorite videos as including clips from the Columbine school shootings in Colorado in 1999.

News reports said the police interviewed the gunman on Monday in connection with the YouTube postings.

The YouTube user's profile included the words: 'And suddenly there was war and the mothers they screamed. For revenge and reprisals for another war,' Reuters reported. The Associated Press quote a YouTube posting as saying: 'Whole life is war and whole life is pain. And you will fight alone in your personal war.'

The Finnish broadcaster, YLE, quoted the school janitor, Jukka Forsberg, as saying: 'Within a short space of time I heard several dozen rounds of shots, in other words it was an automatic pistol,' The Associated Press reported. The rector, Tapio Varmola, also told the broadcaster that, of the 150 students in the school, 20 were taking an examination in the room where the gunman opened fire.