This Saturday was an official day of mourning in the Czech Republic. The flags flew at half-mast. A mass burial took place in Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral this morning to commemorate the fatal victims of David K., the 24-year-old who entered the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities heavily armed on Thursday. The celebratory ringing of the bells echoed from church to church across the country at midday, followed by a minute's silence. Two days after the tragedy, a growing murmur has also emerged: How is it possible for a student To eight firearms without an alarm being triggered? Questions also arise about the police's actions on the day of the attack, the worst in the country's history. The perpetrator of the shooting was on the list of suspects for a crime committed on December 15, and on the day of the attack, police knew in advance that he was heading to Prague armed after finding his father dead. They went looking for him, but sent their patrols to a location that turned out to be wrong.
David K. was a reclusive history student, with good academic performance, an award for his thesis, and no criminal record, but with an extremely expensive and dangerous hobby: weapons. The PrahaIN.cz portal wonders how he was able to amass an arsenal that, according to its calculations, could cost 480,000 crowns, almost 20,000 euros. The assault rifle alone, with which he killed 14 people and injured 25 in the shooting, is worth around 200,000 crowns, or more than 8,000 euros, as iDNES.cz also notes.
But beyond the price, the question that raises the most doubts is how he obtained the license for this arsenal that he registered a few months ago. The country has one of the laxest gun laws in the EU, with the right to own weapons for self-defense enshrined in the constitution. However, obtaining a permit also requires a series of tests, including mental aptitude tests. According to iDNES.cz, David K. recently had mental health issues that required treatment, so there are questions about how he obtained the licenses. Some media outlets today repeat his alleged messages on social networks such as Telegram, in which he expressed his intention to commit a massacre and imitate shootings in Russia. Furthermore, he was not a member of any shooting or hunting club, which has a large number in the country. It is known that he took a shooting course a few months ago, but he went unnoticed and left no mark on his instructors.
The police didn't raise any alarm signals when they saw a young student suddenly register a whole series of weapons, some of them large. The force's deputy chief, Tomás Kubik, admitted that “the system or a person failed” and announced that an investigation would be carried out into how the search of David K.'s arsenal could have gone unnoticed.
Minute of silence this Saturday in Prague for the victims of last Thursday's shooting. DAVID W CERNY (Portal)
The local media reviews the events of the past few days and also sees gaps in the police approach. First, there is the murder of a man and his two-month-old baby in the Klánovice Forest in the Prague district, east of the capital. Precisely because of his large arsenal, David K. was one of the more than 4,000 possible suspects, but was not considered a priority. “We were only a few days away from escaping this tragic event,” admitted the head of the Czech capital’s criminal investigation department, Ales Strach, on Radio Pragra. Ballistics tests confirmed on Friday that the weapon used in the crime was that of the perpetrator of the shooting.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
The procedure on the day of the event is also questionable. Three hours before the shooting, the police received a tip that David K. was heading to Prague with the intention of committing suicide. At this point they already knew his arsenal and knew he was armed. When they went to his home in Hostoun, about 20 kilometers west of the capital, they also found his father's body and an explosive device with a timer in the basement. The agents then went to the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at Charles University on Jan Palach Square in the heart of Prague, where David K. was presumably on his way. There they were told that the student had planned a different course. The nearby building on Celetná Street explained the head of the regional police, Petr Matejcek, at a press conference.
The police went to this other headquarters where they sent reinforcements with the intention of evacuating it, leaving no one behind in the main building. Beyond that, however, he did not warn about the possibility that the armed student would show up. “There was not a single indication that he intended to harm anyone. “It was suspected that he wanted to commit suicide,” Matejcek reasoned. By the time they saw I wasn't in the scheduled class, it was 2:28 p.m. At 2:59 p.m., police received the first report of the shooting in the main building. It only took four minutes for the police to arrive, but David K. fired for 21 minutes until he shot himself at 3:20 p.m. “If there is any doubt, we will investigate in the usual internal control department manner. “I am proud of the work of the police,” said top police officer Martin Vondrásek.
As doubts are clarified, the country tries to overcome the trauma and pays tribute to the victims. The identities of three of them are already known. They are Lenka Hlavkova, director of the university's Institute of Musicology; Jan Dlask, expert on Finnish literature; and Lucie Spindlerova, freshman.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Limited time special offer
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_