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Graz school shooting
2025 mass shooting in Graz, Austria From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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On 10 June 2025, at 09:57 CEST, a mass shooting occurred at the Dreierschützengasse secondary school in Graz, Austria.
The shooter killed 10 people and injured 11 others. The gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the school lavatory and was identified as a 21-year-old former student at the school.[6][7]
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Background
BORG Dreierschützengasse is an upper secondary gymnasium (Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium) in Graz's Lend district.[8] At the time, between 350 and 400 people were inside the building,[2] where oral exams for Matura were being held.[9]
Incident
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Shooting
At around 9:43 a.m.,[2] the perpetrator entered BORG Dreierschützengasse. The gunman entered a restroom on the third floor, where he armed himself with a pistol and sawed-off over/under shotgun[3] he had carried inside in a backpack and put on a pair of shooting glasses, a headset, and a weapons-belt with a hunting knife.[2] The first gunshots were fired at 9:57 in a fifth-grade classroom on the second floor. Afterwards, the perpetrator returned to the third floor, where he opened fire inside a seventh-grade classroom after shooting several times at the lock to open.[10] At 10:07, he returned to the school lavatory on the same floor, where he shot himself using the handgun inside a toilet cubicle.[2][11][12] The shooting lasted seven minutes,[3] during which around 40 gunshots were fired in total.[13]
Emergency response
Emergency services arrived within six minutes of the call at 10:06.[2] Police dispatched a total of 300 officers, including regular units, the tactical force Einsatzkommando Cobra, and 160 paramedics and firefighters.[14] All deceased, including the perpetrator, were accounted for at 10:13.[15] The school building was evacuated within 17 minutes after the arrival of first responders and the situation was reported to be under control by 10:28.[9] A disaster alert was issued for nearby hospitals.[7][16][17][18]
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Victims
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The dead included nine students and one teacher (who later died at a hospital).[2][18] Seven of the victims were female (including the teacher that was killed)[19] and three were male.[20][21] The nine dead students were aged 14 to 17.[22] Graz mayor Elke Kahr confirmed that the perpetrator was among the dead. One person had been killed outside of the school building.[10]
A total of thirty people were treated at hospitals around Graz,[14][23] of whom twelve had gunshot wounds.[10] The nearby Helmut-List-Halle was repurposed as an emergency triage centre for the injured.[7] Five people were described as being in critical condition, while two adults were in life-threatening condition. A 59-year-old[10] teacher died at Universitätsklinikum Graz eight hours later.[24][4][25] By the following day, the remaining injured, aged 15 to 27, were all in stable condition.[26]
Nine of the deceased victims were Austrian nationals, including one with dual French citizenship,[10] while one was a Polish national.[22] Two of the deceased and one injured victim were of Bosnian descent,[27] and one of the students killed was of Albanian descent from Kosovo.[28] Two of the injured were Romanian nationals, while a third was an Iranian citizen.[29]
Perpetrator
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The perpetrator was identified as Arthur A.,[5] a 21-year-old Austrian citizen[30] from Kalsdorf bei Graz[31] who formerly attended the school. He had to repeat the sixth grade and dropped out without graduating in 2022.[7][2][11][32] Part of the shooting took place in his former classroom.[33] His mother has Austrian citizenship and his father is Armenian.[34] He was unemployed and had been rejected from service in the Austrian Armed Forces after being judged "mentally unfit".[35][36] He was living in an apartment with his mother at the time of the shooting.[2]
The perpetrator legally owned both firearms used in the shooting through a firearms ownership card (Waffenbesitzkarte)[37][33] he had obtained in April 2025,[2] but did not have a firearms carrying licence (Waffenpass).[22] The Glock semi-automatic pistol was purchased in May, a few days before the shooting,[2] while the shotgun had been in his possession since April.[38] He had no prior criminal record.[39]
Shortly after the shooting, media reports reported that the perpetrator described himself as "a victim of bullying",[40][41] citing "unconfirmed reports" by Kronen Zeitung, which speculated that the shooting was motivated by revenge.[42] ORF reporter Peter Unger stated that the claim originated from social media and was not verified by police.[43] The perpetrator was acquainted with one killed female student, who was his upstairs neighbour,[31] and the deceased teacher.[2] Interior Minister Gerhard Karner stated that the police investigation was ongoing and that details about the motive were "speculative".[11][15][44][45]
A suicide note was found by police during a search of the suspect's residence the same afternoon, but its contents were not immediately released.[46] In their coverage, Kronen Zeitung reported that there was mention of bullying in the letter,[22] which other press agencies described as unconfirmed.[47][48][49] General Director for Public Security Franz Ruf stated that the note was a goodbye message addressed to his parents and contained no reason for the shooting.[22] Also discovered was a non-functional pipe bomb, as well as a video message sent to the perpetrator's mother before the shooting. In the video, the perpetrator declared his intention to carry out the attack on his old school. The perpetrator's mother viewed the footage 24 minutes after it was uploaded and immediately contacted the police, by which point the shooting had already started.[22][50]
Further documents found indicated that the perpetrator had planned a bombing attack,[34] but discarded the idea,[10] and also showed that the perpetrator had specifically targeted the second and third floor of the school.[2] A social media account linked to the perpetrator had posted images of the weapons used in the shooting, as well as photos of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, whose images he also used as profile pictures.[51][52][53][54]
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Aftermath
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The shooting was the deadliest rampage killing in modern Austrian history.[55] A service for the victims was held at Graz Cathedral on the evening of 10 June, while a makeshift memorial was erected in front of the city hall.[29] A nationwide minute of silence for the victims was held on 11 June.[56]
The perpetrator's name was initially reported as "Artur A.", due to which photos of an unrelated man from Styria with the same name, similar age and heritage, were shared online following publication on a French internet platform. An online hate campaign against him and his family developed, leading him to call the Austrian broadcaster ORF for help.[57][58][5][59]
There was criticism directed at Kronen Zeitung and Oe24 for publishing unverified information about the shooting and making sensationalist reports.[60][61][62] Misinformation and conspiracy theories were also spread by some right-wing media such as Exxpress and AUF1, including that the shooting was committed by an immigrant and part of a "globalist agenda".[63][64][65][66]
On 11 June, a number of bomb threat e-mails were sent to various schools and train stations in Austria, including another secondary school in Graz and a kindergarten, leading to police being dispatched for security. Similar threatening messages had preceded the shooting and a potential attempt at copycat crime is being investigated.[10][67][68] On 12 June, three schools in Stainz were evacuated due to attack threats.[69]
On 23 June, the school re-opened for the final two weeks of the school year, but the affected areas from the shooting will be closed and re-designed during the nine weeks of summer vacation. Attendance was optional for students during the final two weeks and lessons could also be held outside the school in container rooms, while psychological counselling continued in the nearby List Hall.[70]
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Reactions
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On 10 June, Chancellor Christian Stocker (ÖVP) cancelled all appointments for the day and travelled to Graz with interior minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) to coordinate the government response. They spoke at a news conference with education minister Christoph Wiederkehr (NEOS), Styrian governor Mario Kunasek (FPÖ) and Graz mayor Elke Kahr (KPÖ); Stocker announced three days of national mourning that started on 11 June 2025.[7] On 16 June, Stocker vowed to tighten gun laws later the same week.[71] Education minister Christoph Wiederkehr announced that the school will remain closed until further notice, emphasizing that the immediate priority is to support the victims and ensure the school remains a safe environment moving forward.[72]
On 11 June, mayor Kahr, representing the view of the communist KPÖ, called for a ban on private handgun ownership in Austria and for the firearm law to be changed accordingly. Soon after, the Austrian Green Party also announced their support for the proposal. President Alexander Van der Bellen supported a review of the existing firearm law and certain improvements to prevent firearm rampages or killings like in Graz. The far-right FPÖ was categorically opposed to banning private firearm ownership and said that the current firearm law is already very strict. The centrist government parties ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS did not offer an opinion on the issue due to the period of mourning the victims.[73][74] All five of the major Austrian political parties postponed their party conferences in Styria out of respect for the victims.[75][76] On 16 June, Stocker announced that the government would introduce laws for "stricter eligibility requirements for gun ownership and restrictions for certain risk groups".[77]
On 10 June, the Austria national football team announced that they would wear black armbands for their World Cup qualifier against San Marino later in the day.[72]
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See also
Notes
- The full name of the perpetrator has not been released officially.
References
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