The motives and origin of the weapons focus the investigation
The motives and origin of the weapons monopolize the investigation of this Monday’s attack in a classroom of the German university of Heidelberg, in which an 18-year-old man shot a 23-year-old student in the head and caused injuries. serious to three other people before taking his own life. A police spokesman reported today that family and friends of the attacker are being questioned, that shortly before shooting at the students he had sent his father a message on “Whatsapp” in which he announced his intentions and explained that “people must be punished now” without further explanation. “The parents of the victim are suffering a lot, but also those of the author of the attack,” said the police spokesman. The young man burst into the classroom at noon when some 30 students were attending an introductory class in organic chemistry at the Faculty of Biological Sciences and began firing with a repeating shotgun, hitting the young woman in the head who died shortly after and others. three students, two girls aged 19 and 20 and a boy aged 23, on the leg, back and face, respectively
The author of the attack, a student of the same faculty whose identity has not been provided, had apparently acquired the repeating shotgun and another double-barreled shotgun abroad a few days before. In addition to the weapons, a hundred cartridges of ammunition were found in the backpack that was found next to his body outside the building where the attack took place. At the scene, the police have so far found three empty cartridges. The murderer was a young German resident in the nearby town of Mannheim. In the message he sent to his father shortly before the attack, the young man indirectly announced his suicide by stating that he wanted his ashes to be thrown into the sea. The investigators try to find out the origin of the two shotguns and the ammunition, which they suppose he acquired in the black marking, since the young man lacked an official weapons permit, but also a criminal record. The police stressed that a purchase invoice with the name of the seller had been found and that this was carried out in person, not through the internet.
After ruling out the intervention in the attack of third parties, the Heidelberg police chief, Siegfried Kollmar, stressed that it is unknown why he stopped shooting and fled after reaching several colleagues. Kollmar did not rule out that the killer wanted to shoot a specific person and stressed that he could have committed an even greater massacre, since he had time to reload the repeater shotgun and had enough ammunition to do so. When the agents who immediately went to the scene found the lifeless body of the young man, one of the shotguns by his side and the backpack he was carrying, they took time to search his belongings. The fear that the backpack contained explosives inside caused the bomb squad to be alerted so that they could check its contents before giving the green light to the investigators to carry out their work. Kollmar pointed out that the police received the first calls to warn of the attack just 43 seconds after the shots were fired. At the same time, the alarms were set off at the university after the emergency button was pressed.
He added that the first patrols arrived at the university six minutes later and that the agents were deployed to search the building where the attack took place room by room until reaching the classroom where the wounded were. The 23-year-old girl was rescued while still alive, but died hours later in hospital due to the seriousness of the injuries she suffered to her head. The Heidelberg police chief noted that the 18-year-old’s home and that of his parents were immediately searched. The agents seized the mobile phone he was carrying and his personal computer and hope to find out more details about the personality of the attacker.
.
#Heidelberg #attacker #announced #crime #decision #commit #suicide