School shooting tragedy in Austria results in minimum of 10 fatalities and 12 wounded victims; perpetrator ends own life
A chilling and heart-wrenching tragedy unfolded in Graz, Austria on a fateful Tuesday in 2025. The bustling high school known as BORG Dreierschützengasse was the setting for an unimaginable horror, with at least ten lives cruelly cut short and more left visibly scarred after a harrowing shooting.
Tension soared as local police responded to the crisis, swiftly deploying special forces to the school just a kilometer from Graz's historic center following an alarming call at 10 a.m.[1][2] The attacked locale was recently evacuated with all survivors rushed to a safe gathering point, and a police update was subsequently shared on the social media platform X.[1]
Authorities quickly confirmed that the attacker, a 21-year-old Austrian man with a chilling past as a former student at the school, had used two weapons in his horrific rampage - a long gun and a handgun - which he apparently legally possessed.[1][2] Shockingly, the assailant was also pronounced dead, though reports suggest he took his own life within a bathroom following the carnage.[1]
Austria's Interior Minister, Gerhard Karner, gathered journalists for a poignant press conference where he disclosed more details about the deceased suspect, revealing that he failed to graduate from the school.[2] Likewise, Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker announced that the nation would observe three days of national mourning, with the Austrian flag flying at half-mast and a solemn minute of silence at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.[2]
Photographs from the scene depicted a flurry of emergency services, with several police and ambulance vehicles present, as well as a police helicopter cruising overhead.[3] Moreover, a vibrant community rallying together in Graz's city square would follow for a touching vigil in memory of the departed victims and their grieving families.[3]
The series of events surrounding the shooting in Graz tragically marked the deadliest incident in Austria since the end of World War II, surpassing the deadly Vienna shooting in 2020 which claimed four lives, including the shooter.[1] In 2019, another despicable attack occurred in the picturesque town of Kitzbühel, where a 25-year-old man callously ended multiple lives, including his ex-girlfriend and her family members.[1]
Moreover, a disheartening reminder resurfaced as investigators uncovered theway back to July 2015, and the disturbing memory of a man who left the lives of 3 and more than 30 others devastated when he drove a vehicle into a bustling Graz crowd.[4]
Sources:
- School shooting near Austria's Graz leaves 10 dead, 12 injured
- Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern: There will be three days of national mourning'three-days-of-national-mourning)
- Vigil in Graz to show solidarity with the victims of the school shooting
- Graz driver who killed 3, injured 30 in 2015 still jailed
- Despite the tragic events of the school shooting in Graz, Austria, the nation announced a three-day period of national mourning, extending the Austrian flag at half-mast and observing a moment of silence.
- Amid the general-news and crime-and-justice headlines, the world watched as Austrian politics grappled with the aftermath of the horrific shooting, a devastating event that marked the deadliest incident in Austria since World War II.
