What do we know about shooting the mass mass

The students sat in their classrooms at a high school in Graz when a 21-year-old Austrian man shot dead nine people before committing suicide.

Twelve people were injured in violence on Tuesday morning, with one person dying later in a hospital from his injuries.

The incident was the most deadly mass shooting in Austria’s recent history and the country announced three days of mourning.

Police are still investigating why the weapon – a former student who has not completed – carried out the attack.

Here’s what we know so far.

The first shot echoed through the Dreierschützengasse secondary school, in the northwest of Graz, near the main station, around 10:00 local time (09:00 BST), initially ignited confusion about what was happening.

“Was this a shot? That can’t be true. Something must have fallen on the construction site on the other side of the street,” said a 17-year-old student identified as F, told his friends, according to Kleine Zeitung.

A student told Die Presse that when the shots fired, his teacher immediately locked the classroom.

Another student told the newspaper that at first she thought the shots were fireworks, but “there were screams then and we were running.”

The local resident Astrid, who lives in a building next to the school, told the BBC that she had heard 30 or 40 shots. Her husband Franz called the police.

“We saw a student at the window – he seemed to be preparing to pop up … But then he came back inside,” Franz said.

Later, the couple saw the students “left the school on the ground floor, on the other side,” where they “gathered on the street,” Franz said.

The shooter took his life in a school bath shortly after the pistol attack, authorities said.

Police put the situation under control for 17 minutes. More than 300 police officers, including a specialized Cobra tactical unit, which processes hostage attacks and situations, were located at the school.

Six women and three men were killed in the attack, and a seventh woman died later in hospital. APA Austrian agency reported that seven of the killed were students.

The victims are not yet indicated by the authorities.

A woman, Torres, told the BBC News on Graz’s main square on Wednesday that she knew one of the boys who died. He was 17.

“I have known this family for a long time, including the son of the family, and I knew he was attending this school. I called immediately to ask if everything was fine. Then they informed me at noon that the boy was one of those who were killed,” she said.

“What happened yesterday is completely awful, all of Austria is in mourning,” she said. “This is terrible for all of Austria.”

People who were injured have been in a stable condition since Wednesday, the Austrian media reported.

The 21-year-old, who has not yet been baptized, was an Austrian man from the wider region of Graz, who acted alone, police said.

He was a former student at Dreierschützengasse, who did not graduate from the school, Interior Minister Gerhard Carner told a press conference on Tuesday.

In a statement on Wednesday, police said they had found a “farewell letter” and a dysfunctional pipe bomb during a search of a suspect’s home. Authorities have not confirmed the arms of the gunman.

This information suggests that the shooter legally owned the two cannons used in the attack and had a firearm license, police added.

Austria has one of the most armed civilian groups in Europe, with approximately 30 firearms per 100 people, according to a study of small weapons, an independent research project.

The machine guns and pistols of the pump are prohibited, while revolvers, pistols and semi -automatic weapons are only allowed with official permission. Rifles and rifles are authorized with a firearm license or a valid hunting license or for members of traditional shooting.

School firing is rare. Over the years, there have been several incidents that have participated much less casualties:

• In 2018, a 19-year-old was shot by another youth in Missbach, north of Vienna
• In 2012 in St. Pölten, a student was shot by his father
• In 1997 at a Zöbern 15-year-old killed a teacher and seriously hurt another
• In 1993, a 13-year-old boy in Howlesten seriously injured the head teacher and then committed suicide

The most bulk attacks of weapons in Austria in recent years took place in the heart of Vienna in November 2020. Four people were killed and 22 injured when a convicted jihadist ran through the center of the city opening fire before he was ultimately shot by police.

Fanny Gasser, a journalist at the Austrian daily Kroninen Zeitung, told the BBC News that the school was probably unprepared for the possibility of attack.

“We do not live in America, we live in Austria, which looks like a very safe space.”