School-shootings in Finland. At least 7 people dead.

[Andromeda]

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/07/school.shooting/index.html

Seems like things like this is USA-only no more... So unecessary...

HELSINKI, Finland (CNN) -- At least seven people were reported killed when an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at a school in Finland Wednesday, in a shooting that appeared to have been planned out in graphic videos posted on Internet sharing site YouTube.

Medical officials told CNN affiliate MTV that the headmistress of the school in Tuusula, near Helsinki, was among the dead. It was not clear if the gunman was included in the fatalities.

The shooting, believed to be the first of its kind in Finland's history, was claimed to be the work of Pekka-Eric Auvinen, who has also published a manifesto demanding war on the "weak-minded masses" and pledged to die for his cause.

YouTube appeared to have removed the videos, many of them featuring Nazi imagery, shortly after the incident.

The school involved in the shooting was identified as Jokela High, attended by more than 400 students, aged between 12 and 18.

A video posted on YouTube earlier Wednesday, by a user identified as "Sturmgeist89", was titled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007."

The video showed a picture of the school which then disintergrated to reveal an image of a man resembling Auvinen against a red background, pointing a gun at the screen.

The clip is accompanied by the track "Stray Bullet", by rock band KMFDM, whose lyrics were also quoted by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the students behind the Columbine High School massacre of 1999.

Sturmgeist89 also posted videos of the same person shooting an apple in a wood with a handgun, as well as clips from the Nazi Nuremburg rallies.

Jarkko Sipila, a reporter with MTV, told CNN that the shooting happened around noon Finnish time (1000 GMT) in the quiet town around 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Helsinki.

Sipila said some of the pupils had fled to a nearby elementary school while police surrounded and sealed off the high school. Finnish news agency STT carried police comments that they had been fired at.

The Associated Press reported comments from Kim Kiuru, one of the school's teachers, on radio station YLE.

Kiuru described how the headmistress used the public address system around noon to tell pupils to stay in classrooms.

He said he locked his classroom door, then waited in the corridor for more news.

"After that I saw the gunman running with what appeared to be a small-caliber handgun in his hand through the doors towards me, after which I escaped to the corridor downstairs and ran in the opposite direction, " Kiuru said.

The agency reported Kiuru as saying that he saw a woman's body as he fled the school, before telling his pupils to leave the building through the windows.

Sipila said that at least four people in the school had suffered gunshot wounds and that others had been injured by shattered glass.

He added that the gunman is thought to have had a fascination with dictatorial figures such as Hitler and Stalin.

 

[GoldShadow]

Unbelievable... why must people do things like this? Schools around the world may have to step up their security. I hope the families of victims and everyone else involved are managing.

 

[Black Waltz]

I don't believe that it's a fault of school security; rather, more of a troubled teenager of whom everyone disregarded and just put off as an "outcast" or "rebel". Metal detectors in schools would work, but it would waste a lot of time and money for something that occurs so rarely. More counseling and psychiatry programs are needed in schools in order to diagnose troubled students who may be at risk for hurting others or themselves.

 

[Sporkman]

It was never just USA, Germany has had one I think, I know Scotland had one which actually involved Andy Murray who hid under a desk or something. The USA just has the highest rate, that is all.

 

[KevinM]

I think the largest school shooting ever happened in south Korea where a kid murdered over 50 of his classmates correct me if i'm wrong.

It's not a USA only thing.

However it doesn't lessen the tragedy or impact of the event, good wishes to the families and friends over there in Finland.

 

[TelpeFion]

This was just totally random. Nothing like this ever happens in Finland, the statistics about there being lots of guns here are misleading. Apparently the guy got the idea to do this from the VA Tech killer. The shooter seems to have held Nazis in high regard, along with ideas about "survival of the fittest".

This could actually happen anywhere, all it takes is one crazy person. To me it seems like the guy was actually fairly normal, living a normal teenager's life, which makes it really scary. He may have been isolated, but seemingly not in an abnormal way. He has 3 younger siblings, I think he pretty much destroyed their lives now.

Of course there will now be lots of talk about how to prevent this kind of stuff, but that's almost pointless in my opinion. It seems pretty clear that this was just one crazy person deciding to draw attention to himself by doing something like this. There are over 6 billion people in this world, and some of them are bound to do something like this from time to time. Metal detectors or security guards at schools would be totally overkill. Preventing isolation is the only thing that could help with this, and even that doesn't always help; it's not always individuals who act, but groups.

 

[Zink]

Really, I wonder how much this isolation has an effect. Obviously it's a powerful social force, but I doubt anyone would take a gun to school unless they were already unbalanced, in which case there isn't a whole lot that can be done.

 

[Blazey]

I think the largest school shooting ever happened in south Korea where a kid murdered over 50 of his classmates correct me if i'm wrong.

It's not a USA only thing.

However it doesn't lessen the tragedy or impact of the event, good wishes to the families and friends over there in Finland.

It wasn't a kid at school, it was a police officer going house to house in two villages, drunk and abusing his power as an cop to gain entry into people's home and either shooting them all dead with a rifle one by one or killing an entire family at once with a grenade.

 

[CT Chia]

i hope jack thompson isnt reading this

 

[Keku]

Pretty much the whole Finland was devastated by this act of horror, questions like "Why?" and "How is this possible in our Finland?" have been yelled, without any real answers. And yeah.. the shooter was an admirer of Hitler, Stalin, Nietzsche and their ideologies, and thought that humanity is overrated. He considered his shootings to be war against the rotten society which "imprisons" and "brainwashes" the people. More importantly, he had experienced continuous bullying, which might explain something.

Our Finland is such a small country that our people are very easily touched by events like this (especially since they're extremely rare) and lots of households lit a candle on their window boards in the evening, because of an sms-wave that went through the whole country.

It's really sad that something like this happened, and I'm sure it left a big wound in the whole people here. :/ At least I'm not quite over it yet..

Oh, and there were 8 victims, 6 students, the principal and the school health care nurse.

 

[FireWater]

Unbelievable... why must people do things like this? Schools around the world may have to step up their security. I hope the families of victims and everyone else involved are managing.

It is mostly the kids that are socially isolated/not getting the social resources they desire as well as getting **** for who they are.

Of course the government will blame video games, rather than mental illness in a very restrictive enviornment.

The killer is responsible for his actions, but the school/parents did not help at all.

 

[Keku]

Here's a quite good piece of news about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7082795.stm