Pekka-Eric Auvinen

Case identification

Pekka-Eric Auvinen was identified as the gunman in a shooting at Jokela High School in Tuusula, southern Finland.

Timeline

• 7 November 2007 — Eight people were killed and at least 10 others were injured in a shooting at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 50km north of Helsinki; police responded to a call at 1144 (0944 GMT) and made contact with the gunman 11 minutes later.
• 19 October — Pekka-Eric Auvinen obtained a license for a .22 calibre pistol.
• 8 November 2007 — Police found a suicide note written by the 18-year-old student shortly before he went on a gun rampage at his school and killed eight people.

Background

Pekka-Eric Auvinen was an 18-year-old student at Jokela High School in Tuusula, with 400 pupils between 12 and 18.

A police spokesman said he did not have a criminal record and “was from an ordinary family.” Police described him as a “lonely person with a strong anger against society and radical thoughts.” Detective Superintendent Tero Haapala described him as having “apparently selected his victims at random” and said he had been bullied by other students at the secondary school.

A teacher said the gunman had become increasingly radical in recent months, developing a fascination with Nazi and Stalinist ideologies. Police had described him as an adherent of extreme philosophies on both the left and the right.

Auvinen’s father, Ismo Auvinen, worked for the Finnish railways for more than 30 years and performed in the Big Papa Auvinen band with his wife, Mikaela Vuorio, according to the group’s Web page.

The offence

Pekka-Eric Auvinen opened fire during a lesson at Jokela secondary school.

Shooting and victims

Finnish police said Auvinen killed five boys, two girls and the female principal of Jokela High School. Investigators also said he killed the headmistress, a nurse and six fellow pupils, and that he had aimed to cause maximum bloodshed.

A Bloomberg report said he shot six students—five male and one female—plus a 43-year-old nurse and the principal, Helena Kalmi, 61.

AFP reported that five boys aged between 16 and 18, the 61-year-old headmistress, a 42-year-old female nurse and a 25-year-old single mother taking an adult training class were dead.

AFP also reported that Auvinen had 69 bullets in the school building and that all of the dead had been shot several times.

Injuries and evacuation

The BBC report said more than 10 others were injured in the shooting. In a separate account, the injuries included cuts from broken window panes as students jumped from windows to escape the bullets, and 12 children were hospitalized following the attack. The number wounded was 12 in total, and were allowed home last night in one account. The emergency was declared over after 3 p.m., according to the Tuusula municipality Web site.

Police contact and scene

Timo Leppala, the officer in charge of the police operation, said: “Police ordered him to surrender, to which he answered by shooting towards the police,” and described chaos with students jumping from windows and running for shelter as more police arrived.

Investigation

Police said it was not clear when Auvinen shot himself in the head.

A police spokesman said Auvinen had 500 cartridges on him and that “Thus far 69 cartridge cases were found in the school building,” adding that all of the dead had been shot several times.

Detective Superintendent Tero Haapala said Auvinen had apparently selected his victims at random, adding: “There's nothing that links him with the victims except that they attended the same school,” which he told the Associated Press news agency.

Police described that Auvinen had been armed with a .22 calibre pistol and had obtained a license on 19 October.

Auvinen’s motives and the sequence of the shootings were still unclear, and police said the motive remained unclear but that an explanation could be found mainly in his web writings and his social behaviour.

AFP also reported that police said Auvinen had tried to set a second floor corridor on fire using an unidentified inflammable liquid before shooting himself in a bathroom near the school cafeteria.

Arrest / confrontation

Police responded to a call made at 1144 (0944 GMT) and made contact with the gunman 11 minutes later, according to Timo Leppala. After police surrounded the school building, Auvinen turned his weapon on himself.

Suicide

A Bloomberg report said the gunman shot himself in the head and died in a Helsinki hospital last night. A police account said he was taken to hospital with critical head wounds and later died.

One account reported that Auvinen died at 10:14 p.m., with Eero Hirvensalo, a senior physician at Helsinki’s Toeoeloe Hospital where he was taken, in an interview.

Videos, manifesto, and written material

Auvinen had posted footage foreshadowing the massacre on a video-sharing website and had posted a video called “Jokela high school massacre 11/7/2007” on YouTube.

The account of his videos said that going by the username Sturmgeist89, he called himself a “social Darwinist” who would “eliminate all who I see unfit.” The video had been removed from the website.

A quoted manifesto passage included:

• “death and killing is not a tragedy... Not all human lives are important or worth saving.”
• “This is my war: one man's war against humanity, governments and weak-minded masses of the world.”

Police found a suicide note written shortly before the shooting. Police said Auvinen said goodbye to his family and explained his hatred towards society, and that he gave a warning of the shooting in a video posted on the internet. Investigators said the suicide note was handed over to police and that it was “It was a kind of goodbye letter to the relatives,” as said by police officer Jan Olof Nyholm.

A YouTube notice and an “attack information” message included:

• “Target: Jokela High School, students and faculty, society, humanity, human race ... Attack type: mass murder, political terrorism.”
• “Although I choosed (sic) the school as target, my motives for the attack are political and much, much deeper and therefore I don't want this to be called only as 'school shooting',” he added in the message.

A Bloomberg report said the YouTube video titled “Jokela High School Massacre 11/7/2007” opened with an image of the school and consisted mainly of red cartoon-like pictures of Auvinen shooting at the viewer.

One account said he called himself a “natural selector” and that he would “will eliminate all whom I see unfit, disgraces to the human race and failures of natural selection.”

Witness and contemporaneous remarks

A Jokela teacher, Kim Kiuru, described events during the attack, saying:

• “I stayed in the corridor to listen to more instructions having locked my classroom door,”
• “After that I saw the gunman running with what appeared to be a small calibre handgun in his hand through the doors toward me after which I escaped to the corridor downstairs and ran in the opposite direction.”
• “It felt unreal - a pupil I have taught myself was running towards me, screaming, a pistol in his hand.”
• “jump out of the windows... and all my pupils were saved”.

Seppo Halonen, a civil servant living in Jokela for more than 20 years, was quoted as he stared past police barricades: “First I felt pity, then anger” and “It's impossible to imagine the agony the parents are going through.”

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen described the attack as: “This is an awful day... The shooting has deeply undermined the sense of security in society... Nobody had expected such things,” and later: “This deals a heavy blow to our feeling of security,” adding, “As a society and a community, we have gotten used to feeling secure, and this event opens a crack that will last for a long time.”

Mayor Hannu Joensivu was quoted: “Tuusula will have lifelong scars.”

Aftermath

Wreaths and candles were placed around the grounds of the school in Tuusula, and a national day of mourning was held.

Local education officials set up a crisis centre in a nearby church to help those affected by the tragedy.

Following the incident, the Finnish government met in an emergency session to consider tightening school security.

One account said several grieving students laid wreaths and candles around the school, which was still sealed off by police to allow forensic experts to reconstruct the incident. After a memorial service at Helsinki Cathedral, President Tarja Halonen called on Finns to support each other in a “day of sorrow” for the country.

Finland declared a national day of mourning, with flags flown at half mast across the country in one account.

Classes at the secondary school in Jokela were cancelled for the rest of the week in one report, and another account said Jokela High School remained closed until Monday.

Other details

Police said Auvinen was armed with a .22 calibre pistol for which he obtained a license on 19 October. In one account, he used a 22-caliber Sig Sauer Mosquito pistol capable of firing 10 bullets in five seconds.

Auvinen posted a video warning on the Internet about two hours before police were alerted to the shootings at lunchtime in one report. Police said they found 69 bullet casings at the scene, and he had more than 320 live bullets left in one report.

Auvinen was described as carrying 320 more bullets when he was found, according to police.

One account said Auvinen was a member of a local shooting club.

A report said he was known to support radical causes and that his academic performance was way above average.

A teacher said he was particularly interested in right-wing and left-wing extremism.

Auvinen was described in one account as fascinated by Nazi and Stalinist ideologies and having a plan to rid the human race of “failures of natural selection.”

Auvinen set up a YouTube account under the name of Sturmgeist89 and was described as being ready to die for his cause in one account.