School is out for at least a week, but the students kept coming on Wednesday morning, the day after a deadly school shooting in Austria stunned the country.
They gathered across the street from the high school, in a spot cordoned off from other mourners, well-wishers and reporters.
“What’s really important now is to talk, to be silent together, to listen,” said Paul Nitsche, 51, an evangelical pastor who teaches religion at the school and who was standing on the street in front of the mourning area for the students.
On Tuesday, a former student killed or fatally wounded at least 10 people at the school, BORG Dreierschützengasse, in Graz, a quiet and well-to-do city that is Austria’s second-largest, after Vienna. He then appeared to have killed himself in a school bathroom, the police said.
The police said that the shooter had legally obtained his weapons, a handgun and a shotgun. On Wednesday, the police said they found a pipe bomb when they searched the shooter’s home on Tuesday afternoon.
Franz Ruf, the public security director at the Austrian Interior Ministry, told ORF public television that a “farewell letter” apparently written by the shooter had been found but that it did not seem to include a motive for the attack.
It was one of the worst school shootings in Europe in the past decade.
The Austrian chancellor, Christian Stocker, canceled appointments on Tuesday to travel to Graz and declared three days of national mourning — including a moment of silence at 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday.
The news of the shooting shocked Austria, an Alpine nation where gun ownership rates are high but gun violence is comparatively rare.
On Wednesday morning, a headline at the online site of Kronen Zeitung, the nation’s largest newspaper, declared: “The day after the rampage: Austria cries with Graz.”
The state police said that the gunman was 21 and had previously attended the school but never graduated. Six of his victims were female and three were male, though the authorities have not released their names or ages, citing privacy laws. Another victim, a teacher, died later at a hospital.
Outside the school, makeshift shrines of candles, flowers and stuffed animals lined the perimeter of the school. Investigators and firefighters were still entering and exiting the premises, but otherwise the school buildings were dark and quiet.
Classes are out for the remainder of the week as school officials decide how to proceed. The summer break starts in early July, and many graduating students have yet to take their final exams before potentially going on to university.
“We’re just speechless — this seems to have come from nowhere,” said Simone Saccon, 20, a university student who has spent his life in Graz. He lives near the school and was among those gathered outside on Wednesday. “It’s something you imagine happens in major cities or in the U.S., but that it would happen here?” he added.
Pastor Nitsche was alone in a classroom when he heard the shots. His first instinct was to hide and wait. “It was as silent as if it was the middle of the night,” he said. “Everyone was playing dead — smart.”
After it seemed safe, he said, he ran out into a hallway where he saw the gunman trying to get into a locked door by shooting at it. As he raced away, he saw the body of one of the victims, a young girl, and kept on running until he saw the police storming in. “So many uniforms can be really comforting,” he said.
Belkez Halici, 39, who lives across from the school, was preparing for work on Wednesday, tears streaming down her face. She had tried to keep the news from her three children, but they had heard about it on social media, she said, and they were upset and scared.
“I’ve always said, schools here are not safe,” Ms. Halici said. “With people coming and going, it’s like a shopping center.”
Read the full article here
