World News | School Shooting in Austrian City of Graz Leaves at Least 8 People, Suspected Gunman Dead
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Authorities say the assailant in the school shooting in Graz was a 21-year-old Austrian man who had two weapons, which he appeared to have owned legally.
Graz (Austria), Jun 10 (AP) Authorities say the assailant in the school shooting in Graz was a 21-year-old Austrian man who had two weapons, which he appeared to have owned legally.
Police said they didn't immediately have information on the man's motive, but said that he killed himself in a toilet after fatally shooting nine people. At least 12 others were wounded, some of them seriously.
At least eight people were killed in a shooting at a school in the Austrian city of Graz on Tuesday, and the suspected perpetrator also died, the city's mayor said.
Mayor Elke Kahr described the events as a “terrible tragedy”, the Austria Press Agency reported. It added that the fatalities were seven students and one adult. Kahr said that many people were taken to hospitals with injuries.
Also Read | Austria School Shooting: 9 People Killed in Graz School Shooting; Suspected Gunman Dead.
Police said they believe the assailant acted alone.
Special forces were among those sent to the BORG Dreierschutzengasse high school, about a kilometre from Graz's historic centre, after a call at 10 a.m.
At 11.30 a.m., police wrote on social network X that the school had been evacuated and everyone had been taken to a safe meeting point. They wrote that the situation was “secured” and there is no longer believed to be any danger.
Police deployed in large numbers, with police and other emergency vehicles guarding the area around the school and with at least one police helicopter flying above the area, according to photos published by the regional newspaper Kleine Zeitung.
Graz, Austria's second-biggest city, is located in the southeast of the country and has about 300,000 inhabitants.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker, who is going to Graz, said the shooting “is a national tragedy that deeply shocks our whole country”.
“There are no words for the pain and grief that all of us — the whole of Austria — feel now,” he wrote in a statement posted on X.
President Alexander Van der Bellen said that “this horror cannot be captured in words”.
“These were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them. A teacher who accompanied them on their way,” he said.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner was also on his way to Graz.
“Schools are symbols for youth, hope and the future,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. “It is hard to bear when schools become places of death and violence.” (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)