The gunman who unleashed terror on Prague today murdered his father before randomly shooting people from the balcony of a top university where he was a student – killing at least 15, police have said, The Daily Mail reports.
A chilling image shared on local media purports to show the man dressed in black aiming a rifle at people below while standing on top of the Charles University Faculty of Arts building this afternoon.
Terrified students and tourists were seen fleeing from the building as gunshots rang out in what is one of Europe’s top tourist hotspots, with witnesses saying the gunman was picking off his victims one by one.
Elite cops were seen storming the philosophy department building of Charles University, where the gunman was a student, with police saying the gunman had been ‘eliminated’ at 4pm – an hour after the deadly carnage began.
Police said the gunman’s body had been found in the area and suggested he had taken his own life when cops closed in on him – though cops did say they had fired at him.
‘Due to the devastating injury sustained by the suspect, we are unable to confirm his identity,’ police spokesman Martin Vondráček said. ‘From the information available to me, there should have been a suicide, however, the police also used a service weapon.’
The gunman, believed to be 24 years old, had fired at his victims one by one from the top of the building – two hours after he is said to have murdered his father in the town of Hostoun. At least 15 people were killed in the massacre in what is the Czech Republic’s worst ever mass shooting.
