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Austrian shooter posted online just before school massacre, media say
Austrian shooter posted online just before school massacre, media say

Reuters

time13-06-2025

  • Reuters

Austrian shooter posted online just before school massacre, media say

VIENNA, June 13 (Reuters) - The 21-year-old man behind Austria's worst school shooting posted on social media from the building just before he shot dead 10 people then killed himself this week, Austrian newspapers reported on Friday. Police described the Austrian as an introvert and an avid player of online shooting games who had largely withdrawn from the outside world before he carefully planned Tuesday's attack. Newspapers Heute and Kronen Zeitung published details of a photo the young man apparently took inside a toilet cubicle with a timestamp minutes before police said the attack began in the school in Graz, a city in the southern state of Styria. The photo was published on X, they said. Kronen Zeitung said the man had an interest in the 1999 U.S. Columbine school massacre in Colorado carried out by two teenage shooters and that he apparently used a photo of one of the pair on his profile with his online gaming pseudonym. Heute said the man had also published pictures of the pistol and the shotgun he would go on to use during the shooting on other social media. A spokesman for police in Styria declined to confirm the reports or whether the man had social media accounts. Police have been scouring the perpetrator's electronic devices, and said on Thursday that they had not discovered any video of the high school shooting on his mobile phone.

Liverpool crash suspect response shows police have learnt from Southport
Liverpool crash suspect response shows police have learnt from Southport

Telegraph

time26-05-2025

  • Politics
  • Telegraph

Liverpool crash suspect response shows police have learnt from Southport

Fewer than two hours after a people carrier ploughed into a crowd of pedestrians, Merseyside Police issued a statement confirming the suspect was a 53-year-old white British man from Liverpool. Last year, the city was rocked by the murders of three young girls in Southport, a town a few miles away. The identity of the perpetrator in that case was published two days later. On this occasion, the police were desperate to get ahead of the curve. In the wake of the Southport killings, there was a complete lack of information. That blank was filled with misinformation. Misleading claims about the attacker abounded on social media and their true identity was lost in a storm of inaccurate claims. The ethnicity and asylum status of the perpetrator were discussed and discussed and dissected on Right-wing social media channels. Ultimately, this silence helped to trigger riots across Britain. Senior figures in Merseyside Police were well aware of their failings in the handling of the Southport case. They are also well aware of how they could have communicated better following Monday's attack. In a sense, they have. At an early stage they provided the ID of the alleged perpetrator and his ethnicity. Why does someone carry out a mass attack on innocent people? Of course, we need to leave that to the prosecutors. For an attack to be declared as terrorism under UK law, it must have been carried out 'for the purpose of political, religious, racial or ideological cause'. In the Southport case, police and prosecutors claimed that they were unable to establish the motivation behind the stabbings beyond a desire to kill, which is why it was not classified as terrorism. We know nothing about why this attack was carried out. Yet. Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is clear that for an incident to be declared as terror-related it must be 'designed to influence the Government or an international governmental organisation' or to intimidate the public or a section of the public. With the motivations still unknown Merseyside Police have taken a bold, early step. It is a step, however, that seeks to calm public unease. The force wants to try and explain its actions, even when they know, the reason is unclear.

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