The Czech Republic is experiencing a day of national mourning after the massacre perpetrated yesterday at Charles University in Prague by a 24-year-old student identified as David Kozak. Before committing suicide, he killed 14 people, 13 of them already identified, and injured 25 others, including three foreign students, two Saudis and a Dutchman.
The first shooting victim identified was Lenka Hlávková, director of the Institute of Music Sciences of the University’s Philosophy department. She was a mother of two children. Her colleagues have shared a photo of the victim and declared themselves “totally devastated” by Lenka’s “senseless” murder.
The Government decrees Saturday as a ‘day of national mourning’, on which the sirens will sound at 12 noon.
The trail of blood left by Kozak began in his own home. Before traveling the 13 kilometers that separated the Czech capital from Hostoun, his hometown, he murdered his own father. Police now suspect that Kozak first practiced the art of killing for two months in a forest in Klanovice, near Prague. More than 250 police were sent to search the area and a thermal imaging helicopter was used to search the wooded area, but the shooter was never found. At the time, police spokesman Jan Rybanský stated that a team of several dozen experienced criminologists were working on the case. They found no clues and no motive, so it was deduced that the murderer had chosen the victims at random.
Kozak, was a tuition student. This year he defended his bachelor’s thesis on the Krakow Uprising of 1846, and even received a prize for it. For his well-planned action, he armed himself to the teeth. “He was heavily armed and carried a lot of ammunition, so if the security forces had not acted quickly, there would have been many more victims,” the police maintain.