Day of mourning declared after 14 dead in Prague mass shooting, as university raised black flags in honor of victims
The Czech Republic declared a day of mourning on Saturday after a gunman killed 14 people in Prague in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.
David Kozak, 24, killed 14 people and injured 25 – ten seriously – during the deadly rampage in which he attacked students and tourists from the balcony of Charles University’s philosophy building.
The Czech government has announced that tomorrow will be a day of mourning, with flags on official buildings flying at half-mast and people being asked to observe a minute’s silence at 12:00 noon (11:00 GMT).
Today, Charles University raised black flags in honor of the victims and canceled all lectures and events following the shooting.
People have been lighting candles outside the university’s medieval downtown headquarters since Thursday evening, and leaders from the nation’s universities planned to pay their respects there later Friday morning.
A chilling image shows Kozak, dressed in black, pointing a gun at people below as he stands atop a faculty building
Other extraordinary footage shows terrified students huddled on a ledge high on a faculty in an attempt to hide from the gunman after others were told to barricade themselves in classrooms
Student David Kozak, 24, has been named as the killer by local police
The gunman began his attack at 3pm yesterday and by 4pm police said he had been ‘eliminated’ after elite officers were seen storming the building.
Police opened fire on Kozak while he was still trying to shoot more victims, police President Martin Vondrášek said.
Extraordinary footage shows terrified students cowering on a ledge high on a balcony in an attempt to hide from the gunman after others were told to barricade themselves in classrooms.
It comes as Czech police said today that 13 of the 14 victims have been identified. The Interior Ministry said two UAE citizens and a Dutch national were among the injured.
Kozak murdered his father in his hometown of Hostoun before traveling the twenty kilometers to the Czech capital, where he began shooting people at random from the balcony of Charles University’s philosophy building.
The gunman legally owned multiple guns — police said Thursday he was heavily armed and had a lot of ammunition — and that what he did was “well thought out, a terrible act,” Vondrasek said.
He carried a huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition, with the country’s interior minister saying that “if the police had not entered the building in time, the perpetrator would not have been lying dead on the roof and there would have been a lot happened’. more victims.’
In the run-up to his killing spree, Kozak is said to have kept a diary in Russian on the messaging app Telegram, writing in a chilling post: ‘I want to do a school shooting and possibly commit suicide.’
Last night it emerged that police are investigating whether Kozak may have murdered a 32-year-old father and his two-month-old daughter in Klanovice, near Prague. Hundreds of police officers combed the wooded area after the perpetrator disappeared, and authorities are currently investigating whether the two killings could be linked.
Today, Charles University raised black flags in honor of the victims and canceled all lectures and events following the shooting
Young people light candles at a makeshift memorial to the victims outside Charles University in central Prague on Friday
Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Petr Fiala lays flowers outside the Charles University Building on Friday
“I want to do a school shooting and possibly commit suicide. Alina Afanaskina helped me too much,” he allegedly wrote on December 10 about the school shooter in Bryansk, who killed two students before committing suicide.
The chilling entry in what the writer called their “diary” about “life before the shooting” continued: “I always wanted to kill, I thought I would become a maniac in the future.”
Prime Minister Petr Fiala said the “lone gunman… has wasted many lives, especially young people.”
“There is no justification for this heinous act,” he added.
Although mass gun violence is unusual in the Czech Republic, the country has been shocked by a few cases in recent years.
A 63-year-old man shot dead seven men and a woman in 2015 before killing himself at a restaurant in the southeastern city of Uhersky Brod.
In 2019, a man killed six people in the waiting room of a hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava, while another woman died days later. The man shot himself about three hours after the attack.
Although mass gun violence is unusual in the Czech Republic, the country has been shocked by a few cases in recent years.
A 63-year-old man shot dead seven men and a woman in 2015 before killing himself at a restaurant in the southeastern city of Uhersky Brod.
In 2019, a man killed six people in the waiting room of a hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava, while another woman died days later. The man shot himself about three hours after the attack.