GERMANY: RESIDENTS OF ERFURT MOURN VICTIMS OF TEENAGE GUNMAN WHO KILLED SEVENTEEN PEOPLE IN HIS SCHOOL

Record ID: 377128

  • Title: GERMANY: RESIDENTS OF ERFURT MOURN VICTIMS OF TEENAGE GUNMAN WHO KILLED SEVENTEEN PEOPLE IN HIS SCHOOL
  • Date: 29th April 2002
  • Summary: (U5) ERFURT, GERMANY (APRIL 28, 2002) (REUTERS) 1. SLV EXTERIOR OF JOHANN GUTENBERG SCHOOL WITH HEAPS OF FLOWERS; MV PEOPLE MOURNING IN FRONT OF HEAPS OF FLOWERS; SCU WOMAN BLOWING HER NOSE; SLV EXTERIOR CITY HALL; MV YOUNG PEOPLE SEATED (9 SHOTS) 0.47 2. SOUNDBITE (German) HEAD GIRL AT JOHANN GUTENBERG SCHOOL MICHAELE SEIDEL SAYING "It will take y
  • Embargoed: 14th May 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ERFURT, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA2V5J6LG69M4VP9ZZZTAJBSZ4P
  • Story Text: As residents of Erfurt mourned the victims of a
    teenaged gunman who ran amok in his school, the school's head
    girl has made an appeal for the building to return to a normal
    place of education rather than a memorial site.

    German police investigating a web site which may have
    been set up by the 19-year-old killer have said the homepage
    appeared to have been updated by someone else several hours
    after Robert Steinhaeuser's death, prompting speculation that
    it was a hoax.

    Residents of Erfurt the German town where a teen gunman
    killed 16 people two days ago were mourning the deaths of his
    victims on Sunday (April 28, 2002).

    Some townspeople have been calling for the school where
    the killings were carried out to be closed forever as a
    monument to the dead but the school's head girl, Michaele
    Seidel told a news conference that was the last thing the
    pupils wanted.

    "This school should revert to being that - it should be a
    place which helps pupils, introduces them to life and should
    not become a monument to what has happened", she said.

    Photos of Steinhaeuser on the front pages of Saturday
    newspapers showed a pale-faced, short-haired, ordinary-looking
    young man.

    He had failed last year to qualify with the rest of his
    class to take the rigorous school-leaving examination and had
    been forced to repeat the final year, but was expelled in
    February for forging absentee excuse notes.

    There was speculation the main motive for his attack was
    the knowledge he would soon be facing a future with no
    qualifications. The attack took place as fellow pupils were
    sitting down to take their exams.

    When asked if she hated Steinhaeuser, Seidel said: "I
    don't have any feelings towards the culprit. I can't have any,
    because what is one to feel?-Hatred? Or Pity, I myself
    studied with that pupil and I didn't really know him and I
    have to admit that I don't want to know him, For me he was
    a sick person who should have been helped."
    Steinhaeuser, who had recently obtained a gun licence and
    was a gun club marksman, shot all of his victims with a
    pistol, many in the head at close range, police said. He was
    also carrying a pump-action shotgun but did not use it.

    He killed 13 teachers, one policeman and two pupils,
    before turning the gun on himself.

    German police said on Sunday (April 28) they were
    investigating a web site which may have been set up by the
    19-year-old killer.

    They said, however, that the homepage appeared to have
    been updated by someone else several hours after Robert
    Steinhaeuser's death, prompting speculation that it was a
    hoax.

    A sketch of one of the weapons Steinhaeuser carried but
    did not use during his assault, a pump-action shotgun
    indicated that the web site might have been Steinhaeuser's
    work, police said.

    Police chief Manfred Grube said the web site appeared to
    paint a very precise profile of Steinhaeuser but noted it was
    updated hours after he had killed himself on Friday (April
    26), after carrying out Germany's worst post-war mass murder.

    "It could be either a hoaxer, who wants to get a bit of
    publicity, or there could be a second person who had access to
    the homepage of (Steinhaeuser)," Grube told a news conference.

    "We are still looking into it," he added.

    The alleged homepage contains much of the information
    about Steinhaeuser that was published in the media on Saturday
    (April 27) in the wake of the shooting, including a photograph
    reproduced in many newspapers.

    People who have added comments to the web site's guestbook
    have left messages saying it is a fake.


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