Prague was in shock and mourning Friday after a gunman killed 14 people and injured 25 more at Charles University, the deadliest peacetime attack in the history of the Czech Republic. <\/p>\n
The brutal incident on Thursday was also the first-ever school or college shooting in the Czech Republic, leaving the nation and its top officials stunned. <\/p>\n
Prague, a festive winter wonderland just 24 hours before, felt somber and empty on Friday morning. A makeshift memorial of candles and flowers was set up at the university\u2019s historical headquarters overnight, with people coming to pay their respects from early in the morning, despite heavy snow and rain. <\/p>\n
Addressing the nation on Thursday, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala called the shooting \u201ca senseless attack\u201d and said \u201cthis Christmas will be unimaginably sad.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cLike many of you, I am feeling a deep sorrow and disgust over this incomprehensible and brutal violence,\u201d Fiala said. Czech President Petr Pavel said he felt \u201cdeep sadness and also helpless anger over the loss of so many young lives.\u201d <\/p>\n
Pope Francis, meanwhile, said he was \u201cdeeply saddened\u201d to learn of the shooting, according to a Vatican statement released Friday. <\/p>\n
\u201cHis Holiness Pope Francis expresses his spiritual closeness to all affected by this tragedy,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n
In a press conference Friday, Prague police chief Petr Mat\u011bj\u010dek also confirmed the gunman \u2013 a 24-year-old man who was a student at the university \u2013 died by suicide. Police have not yet named him. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went to the site of the attack and I was horrified and shaken. And I have been with the police for 40 years,\u201d Mat\u011bj\u010dek told journalists. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw the amount of ammunition, the weapons that he brought, what he was prepared for, I can only thank my officers for their quick action \u2014 they prevented many more deaths.\u201d <\/p>\n
Speaking at a news conference on Friday, Czech Police Chief Martin Vondr\u00e1\u0161ek also said that having been a police officer for 35 years, he had \u201cnever seen anything as horrifying\u201d as the shooting at Charles University in Prague that left 14 people dead and 25 more injured. <\/p>\n
He said 13 people were killed at the scene and one died after being taken to hospital. <\/p>\n
Vondr\u00e1\u0161ek said that the Czech police has begun regular and sustained training for active shooter situations following the 2011 terror attacks in Norway. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the moment we realised this kind of thing can happen anywhere,\u201d he said. \u201cI can assure you that not a week passes without an active shooter training somewhere in the Czech Republic,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Vondr\u00e1\u0161ek praised the prompt response from police and other emergency services, which he said likely saved many lives. <\/p>\n
The country\u2019s Interior Minister, V\u00edt Raku\u0161an, made an emotional plea with Czech citizens to seek mental health support and not to spread false information in the wake of the shooting. <\/p>\n
\u201cPlease seek help. There are many resources. The Czech National Institute for Mental Health has many resources, including guides on what to do in crisis \u2014 and this is a crisis,\u201d Raku\u0161an told a news conference. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no shame in asking for help. There is no shame in seeking professionals. Please, do not hesitate to do this,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Raku\u0161an also asked the media and the public not to share information about the gunman and details of the shooting, saying that experience from abroad shows this could lead to copycat attacks. <\/p>\n
\u201cDo not give the perpetrator what he wanted. Do not give him the publicity, do not give anyone a chance to be inspired by this act,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Police in the Czech Republic say they have bolstered security across the country following the deadly incident. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have adopted nationwide precautionary measures in relation to schools and other soft targets,\u201d police said in a statement on Friday, adding that there is no information about any specific threat. <\/p>\n
The area around the building is popular with tourists and close to major attractions. It is just across the Vltava River from Prague Castle and five minute walk from the Old Town Square where Prague\u2019s famous Christmas Markets were taking place. The historic Jewish Quarter is within a few hundred meters of the building. <\/p>\n
Authorities are still investigating a motive in the rampage, which took place at the Faculty of Arts building of Charles University.\u00a0Known in Czech as the Faculty of Philosophy, the school is one of the original colleges set up when the university was founded in 1348. Subjects including history, philosophy, art theory and languages are taught there. <\/p>\n
Police said that as of midday on Friday, all 14 victims had been identified. <\/strong>The victims included a number of young students, a lecturer, and the head of a university department. <\/p>\n The Department of Musicology at the school announced that its director Lenka Hl\u00e1vkov\u00e1 was among the victims of the shooting. Hl\u00e1vkov\u00e1 was a renowned expert in the musical culture of medieval central Europe and the department said in a statement her death was \u201cextremely cruel\u201d news. <\/p>\n Lidov\u00e9 Noviny, a Czech national daily newspaper, said in a statement that one of its employees, a proofreader and a first year student of Czech and Deaf studies Lucie \u0160pindlerov\u00e1 was killed in the attack. <\/p>\n A photograph of \u0160pindlerov\u00e1 published by the newspaper shows a young, smiling woman posing in large hat and smelling blooming flowers. <\/p>\n The newspaper said \u0160pindlerov\u00e1 was \u201ca colleague and, most importantly, a friend\u201d and that her death was \u201cextremely painful news.\u201d <\/p>\n Later on Friday, the Czech Athletic Federation announced that a 20-year-old shot-putter, Kl\u00e1ra Holcov\u00e1, was among those murdered in the attack. <\/p>\n The federation described Holcov\u00e1 as a \u201cpromising\u201d young athlete who won nine medals at various Czech championships. She also represented the Czech Republic at international track and field meetings. <\/p>\n Holcov\u00e1 studied Czech studies and archival sciences at the university, the federation said. <\/p>\n A post on the official Facebook page of the university\u2019s department of Germanic studies said that one of its lecturers, Jan Dlask, was also killed. <\/p>\n The statement described Dlask as \u201ca friend, classmate and a wonderful and kind person, an expert in Finnish and Fenno-Swedish literature.\u201d <\/p>\n Another victim was Magdal\u00e9na K\u0159\u00edstkov\u00e1, known as Majda, according to a statement issued by the authorities in her hometown of Roztoky. She was\u00a0also a\u00a0student of languages and deaf studies. <\/p>\n The town said she was active member of the community, taking part in a municipal events and a camping club for children. \u201cJoyful, kind, incredibly talented and creative, Majda is no longer with us and we will miss her tremendously,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n The identities of other victims have not been publicly announced. <\/p>\n The police chief said authorities had information about the shooter before the university killings, saying police received a tip he was traveling to Prague from his hometown village of Hostou\u0148 with the intention to take his own life. <\/p>\n Some time later, the police received information that a man, believed to be the gunman\u2019s father, was found dead in Hostou\u0148. <\/p>\n Vondr\u00e1\u0161ek said the police were aware the shooter had a lecture at 2 p.m. local time and evacuated the building where the lecture was meant to take place. But authorities\u00a0<\/strong>then received a call about a shooting in a different building, according to the police chief. <\/p>\n Czech police on Friday released body camera footage taken during the response to the mass shooting, showing officers searching through corridors and evacuating people from the buildings. It also shows inside a classroom where many of the victims were found. <\/p>\n Czech authorities are also working on a theory the gunman\u00a0is connected to a double homicide in Klanovice, a Prague suburb, last week, where a man and a two-month-old baby were found murdered in a forest. Speaking on Friday, the police chiefs said this was believed to be \u201cextremely likely.\u201d <\/p>\n The shooter had a gun permit and owned several weapons, Vondr\u00e1\u0161ek said. <\/p>\n The Czech Republic has relatively liberal gun laws compared to the rest of the European Union, but gun attacks are rare. To obtain a gun legally, a person needs an official firearm license, which requires a medical examination, a weapon proficiency exam and no previous criminal record. <\/p>\n Raku\u0161an said that reforms seeking to make the gun laws stricter are already being discussed in the Parliament, and that the legislative process began before the shooting attack on Thursday. <\/p>\n The reformed law would make it easier for police to confiscate guns based on information about potential risks, Raku\u0161an said. It would also make it a legal requirement for gun sellers to report any unusual purchases of weapons, including purchases of large amount of ammunition. <\/p>\n Under current Czech laws, a firearm license is needed to obtain a weapon legally. To get the license, people have to pass a weapon proficiency exam and a medical exam. According to official police statistics, more than 300,000 people have a legal permit to own a gun. As of 2022, almost 1 million legally owned weapons were officially registered in the Czech Republic. <\/p>\n\n Prague was in shock and mourning Friday after a gunman killed 14 people and injured 25 more at Charles University, the deadliest peacetime attack in the history of the Czech Republic. The brutal incident on Thursday was also the first-ever school or college shooting in the Czech Republic, leaving the nation and its top officials <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} How the shooting unfolded<\/h2>\n
Raku\u0161an said that under the proposed reforms, the medical exam would be stricter and include a psychological evaluation. Only people with a clean criminal record can get the license. Around 300,000 people in the 10 million country own a firearm license, according to police statistics. <\/p>\n