14 dead after shooting at university in Prague: Shooter a suspected baby killer
The moment Prague shooter David Kozak opened fire, killing 14 at a university, has emerged.
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The man responsible for killing 14 people in a central district of the Czech city of Prague in a mass shooting at a univetsity on Thursday may be connected with the recent murders of a father and his baby girl.
The shooting occurred at a building of the Czech Republic’s biggest university, the Charles University.
Disturbing images have emerged of students crouching precariously on ledges of a campus building to avoid the shooter.
The suspect, a 24-year-old student at the university named David Kozak, was killed.
One of the dead included the gunman’s father whose body was found in a village 20km outside the city. Authorities have now confirmed 25 people were injured – 10 of whom were seriously hurt.
Czech Republic’s interior minister and police confirmed that officers are working on the theory that Kozak was also responsible for the deaths of two people last week in the Klanovicky forest near Prague.
Authorities believe Kozak – who has no criminal history – chose his victims randomly.
The university shooting marks the country’s worst mass shooting since its split from Slovakia in 1993.
Czech President Petr Pavel said he was “shocked” by the violence.
The Czech government has declared a day of national mourning on December 23, with flags on official buildings to be flown at half-mast and people asked to observe a minute’s silence at noon.
US tourist films gunman open fire
An American tourist visiting Prague on a Christmas vacation captured the moment Kozak opened fire on the busy school and public square.
Terrifying footage captured by an Ohio man shows Kozak on the roof of the university’s Faculty of Arts building moments before he started shooting at Jan Palach Square.
The man who asked The US Sun to withhold his last name described what he saw and heard in the square as the rampage began.
He was one of several bystanders who were in the square when they noticed a crowd of people running.
The man began filming as he saw people hurrying out of the building with their hands up over their heads.
Sirens were already blaring in the background, and multiple police vehicles could be seen in the square.
“The police asked people to get behind the building since we were all just stood out in the open,” he said.
Police had begun evacuating the building before the shooting began after receiving a tip-off about a possible imminent attack, Czech police spokesperson Ondrej Moravcik told The New York Times.
“The students you see in the video were removed from the building and were running towards us,” the US man said, later adding that the shooting lasted approximately eight minutes.
His video then briefly shows the gunman atop one of the building’s balconies in the upper left-hand corner of the frame.
Then, as Kevin’s video followed the students across the street, gunfire echoed through the square. He frantically lowered his phone as he realised what was unfolding.
The man yelled, “Jesus Christ!” before running from the scene around a neighbouring building.
Only afterwards did he understand what he’d captured. He believes he caught on video the killer’s first shots.
“We didn’t realise the shooter was on the balcony. We were all just stood there, and then we heard the shot,” he said. “After that, everyone just sprinted.”
The man added: “The aftermath was insane.”
Gunman ‘murdered a man and his child’ a week ago
In the lead up to his killing spree, Kozak is thought to have kept a diary in Russian on messaging app Telegram.
In one chilling post, he wrote “I want to do a school shooting and possibly suicide.”
Police believe Kozak had also killed a young man and his two-month-old daughter in a pram during a walk in a forest on the eastern outskirts of Prague on December 15.
“We are working very seriously with the fact that the attacker from the Faculty of Philosophy is also responsible for the two victims from the end of last week in Klanovicky les,” police spokesman Martin Vondrasek said.
“As far as Klanovicky les is concerned, it is not known that the victims were in any way connected to the perpetrator. I am convinced that the victims were completely randomly selected by a person without any criminal history.”
Kozak is believed to have been inspired by a school shooting carried out by 14-year-old schoolgirl in Russia earlier this month.
“I want to do school shooting and possibly suicide, Alina Afanaskina helped me too much,” he allegedly wrote on December 10 of the Bryansk school shooter, who killed two students before taking her own life.
“I always wanted to kill, I thought I would become a maniac in the future,” Kozak wrote in his diary.
Police were already looking for the shooter
The incident occurred at about 2pm local time on Thursday (midnight AEST) at the Charles University’s Faculty of Arts which is in the old town.
The student is reported to have started shooting on the fourth floor of the building that overlooks the Vlatva River.
“The gunman was eliminated!!!” police said on X, formerly Twitter.
At a press conference, Mr Vondrasek said officers were already on the lookout for the man after finding his father’s body when the campus shooting began.
The gunman “left for Prague saying he wanted to kill himself,” he said.
“At the moment, there is nothing to suggest any further imminent danger,” he said.
Police confirmed Kozak was dead within 21 minutes of first receiving the active shooter report.
“At 1359 GMT, we received the first information about the shooting,” Vondrasek told reporters, adding that the rapid response unit was on the scene within 12 minutes.
“At 1420 GMT, the officers in action told us about the gunman’s motionless body,” Vondrasek said, adding it appeared the gunman had killed himself.
Police evacuated the building, using a concert hall across the street as a temporary refuge for the evacuees.
Police have said there is no indication of a link to terrorism.
In an update on Friday morning (AEDT) Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan revealed a “huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition” had been found at the university building.
“We could have had high tens of victims without a quick police response,” Rakusan added.
Prague Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda told Czech media that locals thought shootings “were a thing that did not concern us”.
“Now it turns out that, unfortunately, the problem of the individual shooter is emerging here as well.”
Studenti se schovávajà i na střeše. pic.twitter.com/loFi0lP6zx
— elias (@elirozic) December 21, 2023
Witnesses detail shooting in middle of tourist hotspot
The Charles University is the Czech Republic’s oldest and largest university and is one of the top academic institutions in central and eastern Europe. Founded in 1347 it has about 50,000 students.
The shooting erupted at the Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, which sits near major tourist sites like the 14th-century Charles Bridge.
Teachers and students were instructed to lock themselves up as police action was under way.
The private Nova TV reported a blast and a gunman on the roof of the building in Prague’s historic centre.
Video from the scene shows people fleeing the streets close to the university on Thursday evening.
The picturesque city of Prague, with gothic buildings and cobbled streets, is a top European tourist destination, particularly around Christmas time when it hosts festive markets.
Six million tourists visit the city every year.
An English couple on their honeymoon detailed the moment nearby dining establishments were alerted of the active shooter.
Tom Leese, 34, said he and his wife were having a drink near where the shooting occurred when a policeman rushed in and started “shouting loudly” in Czech.
“I asked for it in English and he said there was an active shooter and to stay inside and stay down,” he told PA news agency.
“The staff were very calm, turned all the lights off very quickly and urged us to stay calm, the restaurant was relatively quiet.”
A British dad who was in the popular square at the time with his family said his daughter, 25, spotted the gunman lurking on the roof.
He told The Sun: “My daughter said, ‘Dad, look up there, there’s a guy on the roof’.
“And all of a sudden it just went mental, it sounded like a load of firecrackers.
“I would have said about 30 people got shot. There was a guy lying dead on the right hand side of the square. He was shot in the chest.
“We just ran and we got to our Airbnb, which is four minutes away from the square.
“We’re now trying to get an earlier flight back to Gatwick.”
President Pavel expressed remorse at Thursday’s shooting.
“I am shocked by the events … I would like to express my deep regret and sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims claimed by the shooting,” Mr Pavel, who is winding up a two-day visit to Paris on Thursday.
Jsem Å¡okován událostmi na Filozofické fakultÄ› Univerzity Karlovy. ChtÄ›l bych vyjádÅ™it hlubokou lÃtost a upÅ™Ãmnou soustrast rodinám a pÅ™Ãbuzným obÄ›tÃ, které si stÅ™elba vyžádala. Chci podÄ›kovat obÄanům, že respektujà pokyny bezpeÄnostnÃch složek a poskytujà maximálnà souÄinnost.
— Petr Pavel (@prezidentpavel) December 21, 2023
Interior minister Vit Rakusan told the public Czech TV “no other gunman has been confirmed” and called on people to follow police instructions.
Police closed the area and asked people living nearby to stay at home.
Though mass gun violence is unusual in the Czech Republic, the nation has been rocked by some instances in recent years.
A 63-year-old man shot seven men and a woman dead in 2015 before killing himself in a restaurant in the southeastern town of Uhersky Brod.
A man killed six people in the waiting room of a hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava in 2019, with another woman dying days later. The man shot himself dead about three hours after the attack.
Anthony Albanese addresses the massacre
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labelled the shooting “terrible” as he confirms a support hotline for concerned Australians.
“Well, these are terrible scenes, and I know that Australians who have family or friends there in Prague will be concerned,” he told Sunrise this morning.
“We have established a number in which Australians can ring to get information or support. That’s 1300 555 135 to get on to our Department of Foreign Affairs officials.”
Originally published as 14 dead after shooting at university in Prague: Shooter a suspected baby killer
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