Times Online
November 7, 2007
Gunman used YouTube to predict school massacre
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2825403.ece
Jack Malvern
“The teenager, who was not identified, shot himself in the head but survived “
He couldn’t even kill himself right. What a tragedy.
Communism? Anarchism?
They had videos of him shooting apples, on YouTube, that were pulled off a short while ago. His agenda was to kill all people except for the top 3 percent of the “most intelligent people” who, he felt, were the only ones who deserved to live.
“where gun ownership is fairly common by European standards “
How does Finland get along with the UN?
This must've slipped into the article by mistake.
Unlike England, Canada, et al., I doubt we’ll see the Finns go screaming for gun banning/control after a tragedy. There’s this little country next door that’s called ‘Russia’ that the Finns tangle with from time to time.
They *like* their guns.
Finland's population is only 5 million.
Then my pupils shouted at me out of the windows to ask what they should do and I told them to jump out of the windows ... and all my pupils were saved,’’ Kiuru said.
No lockdown into the gun free zone huh?
whodathunk!
A teenage gunman killed his headmistress and seven fellow pupils at a school in southern Finland today, hours after posting a chilling video on the YouTube website predicting the massacre.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, 18, a pupil at Jokela high school in Tuusula, went on a rampage through classrooms before turning the gun on himself. He shot himself in the head but survived and was in an “extremely critical condition” in hospital last night, a police spokesman said.
The school shooting is thought to be unprecedented in Finland, where violent incidents are rare despite a high rate of gun ownership. In his YouTube postings and videos, Auvinen appeared to have similarities to the authors of some of the United States' worst massacres - including the shootings at Virginia Tech in April.
The video - which has been deleted - shows a still image of a school that appears to be the Jokela school. The photograph fragments to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a gun at the camera.
On his YouTube profile, posted under the name Sturmgeist89, Auvinen wrote: "I am prepared to fight and die for my cause. I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."
Jan-Olav Nyholm, a local police officer, said that the killer came from a "very normal family" of four. "He has one brother," he said. "He had no problems in school."
Kim Kiuru, a teacher at the school, described how he first became aware of the situation at noon (10am GMT) when the headmaster announced over the public address system that all students should remain in their classrooms.
"I stayed in the corridor to listen to more instructions, having locked my classroom door. After that I saw the gunman running with what appeared to be a small-calibre handgun in his hand through the doors towards me, after which I escaped to the corridor downstairs and ran in the opposite direction.
"He was moving systematically through the school hallways, knocking on the doors and shooting through the doors. It felt unreal, a pupil I have taught myself was running towards me, screaming, a pistol in his hand."
Mr Kiuru escaped and shouted at his pupils, who were still in the classroom, to jump out of the windows to safety. "All of my pupils were saved," he said.
Police later said that eight people had died, seven of them students and the eighth the school principal, who has not been named.
Auvinen's name was appended to a "manifesto" posted on the internet that claims that "humanity is overrated" and that "it's time to put natural selection and survival of the fittest back on tracks".
The document, which is part of a collection of files including photographs of a young man posing with a pistol, purports to be signed by Auvinen, who lists his aliases as "NaturalSelector89, Natural Seclector, Sturmgeist89 and Sturmgeist".
Sturmgeist89, taken from the German for "Storm Spirit", is the name used by the author of the internet video. Sturmgeist's profile on YouTube, which is largely a rant about the state of humanity, concludes: "I am the law, judge and executioner. There is no higher authority than me."
Miro Lukinmaa, a student at the school, told the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti that the gunman had fired at pupils and at police. "Suddenly people began running and shots were heard and began raining down," he said. "I saw injured people lying in the corridor. We started to run and followed [the crowd] in a panic. Everyone was trying to squeeze through a narrow door."
Another student, Tuomas Hulkkonen, told Helsingin Sanomat that he had known the gunman for ten years. He said that the man had been acting oddly in recent days and had drawn pictures of guns.
Police officers, some armed with automatic weapons, surrounded the school and a city official announced shortly before 4pm (2pm GMT) that the siege was over. The last shot was fired at 12.04pm (10.04am GMT). The gunman fired a single shot at police, who did not return fire, local agencies reported.
Hundreds of pupils and staff were evacuated from the Jokela complex, which houses both an upper secondary school and a comprehensive school.
The operation involved about a hundred police and rescuers, some with automatic weapons and body armour.
Police told reporters that the suspect was a member of a gun club, had a licence for a handgun and had neither a criminal record nor a history of threatening behaviour.
Despite having the third-largest per capita ratio of handgun ownership in the world, violent incidents are rare at Finnish schools. According to Finnish media, there have been four stabbings at schools since 1999. None of these caused fatalities.
The last major attack in the country came in 2002 when a young man killed himself and six others in a bomb blast at a shopping mall in Helsinki.
It’s the guns fault. No guns equal no crime, right?
He used a 22cal “assault pistol” obviously. Did the gun have a bayonete lug, that’s the real question.
Why does this only happen in America?
More gun laws will fix the problem.
We need a global campaign to encourage kooks to kill themselves, by themselves. Tie it into global warming somehow. Nuts generally buy into that crap wholeheartedly.
I worked for a Finnish company and took 4 trips to Finland during my employment. They are the most nonconfrontational folks I have ever worked with. Nobody wanted to lead just a bunch of fence sitters until there was consensus.
I rightly assumed their precarious position between the west and Russia, WW2 experience and their history of fighting for their independence from Sweden and Russia was part of the reason for their behavior. This was confirmed by a few of my Finnish coworkers who thought it funny I even noticed.
All were wonderful people to work with just challenging for an American who is used to just doing whatever it takes to get the job done.
Finland is an absolutely gorgeous country.
And yet the wussy went after unarmed and unprepared kids at school. And then to shoot himself in the head! These wackos are all chickens.
Oh. And his diatribe sounds like it is stratight of the the DUmmie pages.
People make funny videos on YouTube, it seems to encourage a jovial approach to life. There are all types of videos on 'Tube, reflecting all apsects of life. Life encourages a sick approach to life, or he was just a nutter, the old Nature v Nurture debate, I think both. He would have got infamy without the use of 'Tube; he could have sent the video to the media, as did Seung-Hui Cho, put it on another website, or made a website just for his video. There were many school attacks before February 2005, when YouTube was set up.
Pekka The Pecker, Birmingham, West Midlands
Was it not possible for anyone who might have seen the video to have reported it? It seems that the school concerned could have been identified, and that would have been enough to have started an investigation.
Chris Clark, London, United Kingdom
I think this hammers the nail in " Civillians and Guns dont mix"
Old soldier
Charles Wheeldon, Wellington, New zealand
Horrible news, my heart goes out to the victims and to their families.
MA, Denver, Colorado, USA
everyone appears to want their 15 minutes of fame on YouTube. It seems to encourage a sick approach to life.
CA, Manchester, UK
It's a pity that seven innocent students dead beacuse of the gun .the adult must take care of their own child not only their but also their spirit.in order to avoid the caused fatalities.
Michaellzheng, Zhe jiang, China
8 now confirmed dead, including the Headmistress. 5 boys, two girls, and the Principal.
Parliament was suspended on hearing the news.
Michael Collinson, Helsinki, Finland