For the first time since the horrifying incident, a photo of the Austrian school shooter who killed ten people at his old school on Tuesday has been released.
A photo of 21-year-old Artur A holding a cat surfaced, along with information about his past and his shelved bombing intentions.
The school’s former student went on a rampage in his hometown of Graz on Tuesday, killing nine students, ages 14 to 17, as well as a teacher.
Before Artur committed himself at BORG Dreierschutzengasse High School, eleven more people suffered significant injuries.
According to the police, he was shooting for thirteen minutes while using two weapons that he lawfully owned: a shotgun and a pistol.
It has since emerged that Artur, a “bullied’ drop-out, sent his mother a farewell video moments before the attack, pleading for forgiveness for what I’m about to do now.”
According to investigators, his mother watched the video within twenty-four minutes of getting it. According to Austrian news agency Heute, she alerted the police right away after becoming alarmed.
However, Artur had already executed the lethal assault and committed suicide in a lavatory by that point.
He allegedly blamed bullying and the school for the incident in another message that was left behind. According to Kronen Zeitung, he also requested that his cat be cared for.
During a search of the attacker’s residence, investigators reported discovering a non-working pipe bomb and abandoned bombing preparations, which raised the possibility that he intended to kill additional people.
“A farewell letter in analog and digital form was found,” Franz Ruf, the public security director at Austria’s interior ministry, told ORF public television Tuesday night.
“He says goodbye to his parents. But no motive can be inferred from the farewell letter, and that is a matter for further investigations.”
Ruf responded that it is also being investigated and he didn’t want to guess when asked if the attacker had attacked the victims at random or on purpose.
According to him, injured individuals were discovered on different floors of the school and, in one instance, in front of the structure.
The victims were 14–17-year-old students. There was also a teacher slain.
Investigators revealed that the shooter, who would have turned 22 in less than two weeks, lacked personal social media accounts.
He was characterised as a recluse who only spoke to one person, who was unaware of his plans to wreak havoc on Tuesday morning.
Artur did not participate in any local events, activities, or sports teams even after five years of living in Kalsforf, which has an 8,000-person population. Additionally, he didn’t seem to have any social media accounts.
“He was a very inconspicuous young man,” said Kalsdorf mayor Manfred Komericky.
“It felt like he wasn’t even noticed. Nobody really knew him. This is exactly the profile that we unfortunately see too often – silent, socially isolated recluses.”
According to local media, Artur attended business school till 2019 after studying computer technology in middle school.
According to Heute, he had a hard time finding a job and lived in a Graz suburb with his single mother.
It is believed that Artur attended the school that was assaulted on Tuesday, although he did not finish his education.
According to authorities, nine kids—six girls and three boys, ages 14 to 17—as well as a teacher were killed in Tuesday’s attack. One of the students was Polish.
Eleven more people were injured. The assailant committed suicide.
The first of his victims to be photographed is Lea Ilir Bajrami, a 15-year-old Kosovan girl.
In a Facebook post, her distraught aunt paid tribute to the teenager, writing, “Today, my niece Lea tragically lost her life in the attack in Graz.”
“We pray for her soul and express our gratitude to all those who share our pain during these difficult times.”
“With a broken heart and great pain, we inform family, friends, and relatives that our granddaughter tragically lost her life in the attack that occurred in Graz, Austria,” her grandfather Muhabi Bajrami posted on Facebook.
“We pray for her soul and express our gratitude to all those who share our pain in these difficult moments.”
Screams and gunfire erupted as the gunman, brandishing a pistol and a shotgun, barged into his former classroom.
In the worst mass school shooting in the nation, terrified students fled or cowered in hallways and two classrooms while feigning death.
The sound of gunfire and screaming as the shooter selected his victims was captured on terrifying video.
One student fleeing from the shooter called her mother during the attack, saying, “Mama, mama, I’m running for my life!”
The mother described the situation to reporters as unbearable, saying, “It was so terrible, you can’t even imagine it.”
Another student reportedly witnessed three classmates being shot. His father said, “He was terrified and lay down on the floor so the shooter would think he was dead.”
Paul Nitsche, a religious studies teacher, described how he witnessed the shooter busting out locks with a shotgun before entering and sprinkling staff and pupils with bullets from a revolver.
“It was hard to take in,” he said. “This is something I had never even imagined before. That’s what the situation was like as I was running down the stairwell – I thought to myself, this isn’t real.”
Another teacher, who asked not to be named, said, “The whole community is in a state of shock. Schools should be places of safety and learning. But on this day it became more like something from a nightmare.”
“Everyone was in a state of sheer terror.”
More than 900 public transport vehicles, including buses and trams, came to a stop for the 10am mark of memory today, church bells rung across the city of Graz, and all local radio and television transmissions were cut off.
Minutes before the scheduled minute’s quiet, two additional city schools, including a nursery school, were being evacuated after receiving ‘copycat’ threats.
One adult is reported to have been among the six female and three male victims who perished swiftly. Last night, a woman who was the tenth victim passed away from her wounds in the hospital.
When the ex-student turned a gun on himself in a lavatory stall, his violent rampage came to a stop.
One neighbour described him as ‘inconspicuous’, telling Profil news outlet, “He was completely withdrawn.”
“He wore his large headphones and a backpack whenever he went in and out. He never said hello, but he was never unpleasant in any way.”
His mother has been described as a ‘kind’ and ‘truly sweet’ woman, with one neighbour commenting: “I’m praying not only for the victims families, but also for the mother.”
To create a picture of his recent actions and look for hints about his motivation, detectives are combing through data on his computers and mobile phone.
Chancellor Christian Stocker flew to Graz and announced three days of national mourning, calling it a “dark day in the history of our country,” sending Austria into a state of shock.
When emergency personnel heard “screams and gunshots” during frantic calls around 10 a.m. local time, more than 300 police and special forces converged on the school.
As part of an emergency reaction that also comprised 158 paramedics, 65 ambulances, and at least two air ambulances, armed Cobra police commandos charged into the four-story structure.
As gunshots broke out, terrified students recorded themselves on camera. Later, they hurried along the hallways as armed officers assisted in their evacuation from the 400-student school.
As they fled the school building, two schoolgirls were seen holding on to one another. One teacher recounted hearing the gunshots while confined inside a classroom full of students.
In a heartbreaking video, victims could be seen waiting on stretchers outside the school as scores of paramedics attended to them.
White sheets covered some of them. The most seriously injured were transported directly to Graz Regional Hospital by helicopter ambulances.
As word of the atrocity spread, desperate parents rushed to the school, and at a nearby hall, police reunited them with evacuated survivors.
One father told how his son had survived by pretending to be dead. The man, named as Farag, told television channel Puls 24: “Out of fear, he lay down to pretend that he was killed so that he wouldn’t be targeted any more.”
He added, “Who did this? What kind of problem did he have?”
One mother said, “My son called me to say he was in school and that he was being shot at, and that he thinks he is going to die. I’ve only found out now, two hours later, that he’s still alive.”
Metin Ozden, who was in his kebab restaurant near the school, said, “I’ve never seen so many emergency services in my entire life.” He said parents passing his restaurant were crying as they rushed to the school.
‘At least’ a dozen people were hurt in addition to the fatalities, according to police commander Franz Ruff.
28 persons were admitted to the hospital, at least two of them were in “extremely critical condition,” according to an earlier Krone Zeitung article. Seven needed urgent surgery.
It had been stated that some victims had been shot in the head. Official verification of the figures is still pending.
According to the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper, the murderer bought one of the firearms only a few days prior, and police verified that he had lawfully acquired them.
With a population of about 9.2 million, the country is one of the ten safest in the world, according to the Global Peace Index, and public attacks are uncommon there.
Last night the country’s Chancellor said, “A school… is a space of trust, of security, of the future. The fact that this safe space was shattered by such an act of violence leaves us speechless.”
Austria’s foreign minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said, “As a mother of three children, my heart is breaking.” The local state governor Mario Kunasek said “the green heart of Austria is crying”, while president Alexander van der Bellen said, “This horror cannot be captured in words.”
European leaders expressed their sympathies, including Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, who expressed his “deep sadness.” ‘Young fellow citizen’ of France was one of the dead, according to French education minister Elisabeth Borne.
Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, rejected’speculation’ about the issue during a news conference earlier in the day, stating that the criminal office should conduct the investigation.
Police acknowledged that prior to the attack, the murderer was not “known” to them.
Last night Graz Cathedral held a service of reflection and the city’s main square became a “sea of lights” as candles were lit for the victims.
Prayers were given for victims, including one named Leo, in a local parish church. With tears in his eyes, Father Pesendorfer declared, “We are lighting a light for Leo.”
At 10 a.m. local time today, there will be a worldwide minute of quiet. The president’s office, the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, will have its flags flying at half mast.
Yesterday afternoon long queues formed outside a blood donation centre in Graz. Johanna, 30, said, “I’m here because I wanted to do something. I felt helpless.”
According to the interior ministry, over 370,000 Austrians lawfully hold 1.5 million registered firearms, making it one of the most gun-owning countries in Europe.
More over half of Austria’s registered firearms are classified as weapons that any adult without a licence may possess, and the country has a strong wild hunting culture.
