"It was creepy": Sports shooter recalls later Graz rampage shooter
After the rampage at a school in Graz, where a 21-year-old killed ten people before taking his own life, a man has now come forward who had trained with the perpetrator at a shooting club. "I thought he was capable of it," he said in an interview with the news magazine "profil". He also couldn't imagine "how someone like that could pass a psychological test" for a gun ownership card, the 65-year-old remarked.
"There was nothing"
When he learned about the act while on vacation in Croatia, he immediately thought of the 21-year-old, explained the man, who went public with his full name: "Eleven people died, and we were unknowingly a link in a long chain. I kept asking myself: What should have been done differently?"
As a newcomer, the later perpetrator had trained at the shooting club under the guidance of a specialist. He "always sat in the very back corner" and was not interested in contact: "On the surface, I can understand why others only saw him as a 'nice boy'. Because he was so quiet." However, the young man had seemed eerie to him since a joint shooting training: "After a good shot, I praised him, looked at his face from the side, and was startled by how motionless he remained. There was nothing. It was creepy. I backed away and was glad when the remaining five shots were used up. Then I said, 'The training is over.'"
Timing of Test
Regarding gun ownership in Austria, the sports shooter said in the interview that there needs to be "a psychological test at the beginning, when you start shooting. Not at the end, just before I buy the weapon". In the shooting clubs themselves, there also needs to be "more intensive initial interviews and several people who alternately supervise newcomers while shooting to get a better picture". The 65-year-old also saw another circumstance critically: "Newcomers very rarely take the route through shooting clubs to later obtain a gun ownership card - at least with us. In the six years I've been in the club, I can remember two to three cases. Otherwise, it usually goes through the gun dealers."
(APA/Red)
This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.