High School Tragedy in Finland

TUUSULA, Finland

An 18-year-old student opened fire at his high school in this placid town in southern Finland on Wednesday, killing eight people before shooting himself in a rampage that stunned a nation where gun crime is rare.

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Police were analyzing YouTube postings that appeared to anticipate the massacre, including clips in which a young man calls for revolution and apparently prepares for the attack by test firing a semiautomatic handgun.

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Police chief Matti Tohkanen said the gunman belonged to a gun club and got a license for the pistol on Oct. 19. He did not have a previous criminal record, Tohkanen said. “He was from an ordinary family,” he said.

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Students at the school said the killer often wore the same clothes to school: a brown leather jacket, black trousers and a checkered shirt. He almost always carried a brief case.

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“He withdrew into his shell. I had noticed a change in him just recently, and I thought that perhaps he was a bit depressed, or something, but I couldn’t imagine that in reality he would do anything like this,” Hulkkonen told Finnish TV broadcaster MTV3.

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Gun ownership is fairly common in Finland by European standards, but deadly shootings are rare. Finnish media reported that in 1989 a 14-year-old boy shot and killed two students, apparently for teasing him.

Experts warned the Finland shooting could inspire copycat attacks in other parts of the world.

By Marius Turula, Associated Press

Related Links:
Full article at USAToday.com

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