Prague university shooting death toll reaches at least 14

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At least 14 people have been killed by a student at the main university in the Czech capital of Prague in what the interior minister described as the worst mass shooting in the country’s modern history. 

The gunman was a 24-year-old student who had planned his attack and had probably been inspired by similar terror acts elsewhere, the head of the Czech police, Martin Vondrášek, told local journalists.

Czech interior minister Vít Rakušan told an evening news conference that a large number of weapons had been found on the university’s premises and that the shooting would have claimed many more victims had it not been for the swift police response.

Late on Thursday Czech officials updated the toll to 14 dead and 25 injured, including 10 seriously wounded, while warning that these figures could change. The authorities are also investigating whether the same shooter killed two people in a forest near Prague last week.

The student, identified by police only as David K, came from a village on the outskirts of the city and was found dead within the university building. The country’s police chief said the student’s father had also been found dead earlier in the day.

The shooting took place on Thursday at the arts faculty of Charles University in the old town of Prague, not far from the Charles Bridge, one the city’s main tourist attractions. Students were preparing to end their university term on Friday.

Czech media showed police officers standing on the balcony of the faculty building while ambulances rushed to the scene. Some students barricaded themselves in their classrooms and others sought refuge on the ledges of the building while the police intervened, cordoning off the area and ordering residents to stay inside.

Local media reported that a blast was heard and that the presumed gunman had probably been on one of the upper floors or possibly on the roof of the faculty building. Earlier, police had evacuated a building where the gunman had been due to attend a lecture, but then got called to another building where he had instead started his attack.

Interior minister Rakušan said no other gunman had been identified and the attack was not presumed to be linked to international terrorism. He offered no details as to why the student had planned the shooting. He described it as “an unprecedentedly insane act that the Czech Republic has never experienced in its history”.

Czech President Petr Pavel said he was “shocked by the events” and offered his condolences to the families and relatives of the victims. Petr Fiala, the country’s prime minister, cancelled all his planned events, citing the “tragic events” in the capital.

Gun crime is rare in the Czech Republic. In 2019 a gunman killed six in a hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava before fleeing and fatally shooting himself.

Charles University, founded in 1348, is one of the oldest educational institutions in Europe and the largest in the Czech Republic.