The gunman who unleashed terror on Prague is now suspected of shooting dead a man and his infant daughter in a forest near the Czech capital last week, police have revealed.
David Kozak, 24, killed 14 people and injured 25 during a rampage in which he targeted students at his university in downtown Prague, police said, adding that he was shot dead after carrying out the horrific attack.
Kozak murdered his father in the town of Hostoun before making the two-hour journey into the Czech capital where he began randomly shooting people from the balcony of Charles University Arts faculty.
In the lead up to his killing spree, he is thought to have kept a diary in Russian on messaging app Telegram, writing in one chilling post: ‘I want to do a school shooting and possibly suicide.’
Now it has emerged that police are investigating whether Kozak may have killed a father and daughter at random in a shooting in Klanovice, near Prague. Hundreds of police combed the wooded area after the perpetrator disappeared, and authorities are currently probing whether the two killing sprees could be linked.
Student David Kozak, 24, has been named as the killer by local police
Hundreds of police combed the wooded area in Klanovicky les after the perpetrator of a shooting there disappeared
Images circulating online and in Czech media purports to show the shooter on the roof of the university building
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 a faculty building, with witnesses saying the gunman was picking off his victims one by one
Other extraordinary images show terrified students cowering on a ledge high up on a faculty in a bid to hide from the gunman after others were told to barricade themselves in classrooms
Dramatic video shows terrified crowds of tourists and locals sprinting across the famous Charles Bridge – one of Europe’s top tourist sites – after they heard the sickening sound of gunshots in the city
The shooting started at 3pm at the Charles University Faculty of Arts building and police said the gunman was ‘eliminated’ at 4pm after elite cops were seen storming the building
Distressed members of the public are wrapped in foil as night draws in following the horrific attack
A police officer secures the area following the shooting at one of the buildings of Charles University in Prague on Thursday
Emergency services wait at a cordon around Charles University, the location of the shooting on December 21, 2023
Thursday’s massacre is the Czech Republic’s worst ever mass shooting, and the gunman is believed to have been inspired by a school shooting carried out by 14-year-old schoolgirl in Russia earlier this month.
‘I want to do school shooting and possibly suicide, Alina Afanaskina helped me too much,’ he allegedly wrote on December 10 of the Bryansk school shooter, who killed two students before taking her own life.
The chilling post in what the writer called their ‘diary’ about ‘life before the shooting’ went on: ‘I always wanted to kill, I thought I would become a maniac in the future.’
Less than a week after the disturbing posts appeared online, a father and baby girl were shot dead in Klanovice, a forest area outside of Prague.
‘We are working very seriously with the fact that the attacker from the Faculty of Philosophy is also responsible for the two victims from the end of last week in Klanovicky les,’ police spokesman Martin Vondráček said.
‘As far as Klanovicky les is concerned, it is not known that the victims were in any way connected to the perpetrator. I am convinced that the victims were completely randomly selected by a person without any criminal history,’ he added.
The suspect in the killings has been on the loose since the shooting on Friday December 15. Police launched a major manhunt but made limited progress.
They appealed to the public to help in the search last week, saying: ‘We are looking for basically anything related to the case to move it forward. Logically, the murder weapon is the main thing.’
In a new development, the case is now being linked to Thursday’s bloody attack on the historic heart of Prague.
Horrific scenes unfolded at the historic Charles University campus on Thursday, with pictures showing the gunman dressed in black aiming a rifle at people below while standing on top of the prestigious college’s Faculty of Arts building.
Terrified students and tourists were seen fleeing while others crouched beneath a window ledge on the high building as gunshots rang out in what is one of Europe’s top tourist hotspots. Reports have suggested that one person died after falling from a building as they took cover.
There are fears that tourists could be among those killed or the 25 injured in today’s shooting, with police working to identify the victims and saying they will contact embassies with updates in the event of foreign nationals being affected in the atrocity.
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,’ Vondráček said. ‘From the information available to me, there should have been a suicide, however, the police also used a service weapon.’
He added that the death toll could have been much higher: ‘There was a large quantity of ammunition and if the police hadn’t entered the building in time, the perpetrator wouldn’t have been dead on the roof and there would have been a lot more victims.’
A faculty member of the university, Zora Hesova, said people were still locked in classrooms inside the building as armed police officers descended on the scene
Dramatic video showed terrified crowds of tourists and locals sprinting across the famous Charles Bridge – one of Europe’s top tourist sites – after they heard the sickening sound of gunshots in the city.
The gunman fired at his victims one by one from the top of the university building – two hours after he is said to have murdered his father in the town of Hostoun.
In separate footage, people were seen running with their hands raised in the air from the prestigious University’s Faculty of Arts building in the capital, as armed police officers swooped in.
The shooting started at 3pm and police said the gunman was ‘eliminated’ at 4pm after elite cops were seen storming the building. At least 14 people were killed in the shooting and more than 20 were injured – 11 seriously, Prague’s emergency services said.
Other extraordinary images show terrified students cowering on a ledge high up on a balcony in a bid to hide from the gunman after others were told to barricade themselves in classrooms.
Armed police are seen on the balcony of the university in central Prague on Thursday
People can be seen running from a building in Prague
British tourist Joe Hyland, who was on his first holiday abroad with his group of friends, said they were worried there could have been multiple attackers, and rushed to text their loved ones in case the worst happened.
‘As we got onto the tube and we don’t know how many attackers there are and we don’t know what the attackers are, so it the tube the best place or the worst place to go? So we decided to ring our parents to say we loved them and call our friends,’ he told the BBC.
Speaking from Prague, his friend added: ‘It’s our first holiday as us boys. When something like that happens you call you loved ones because you don’t know in the confusion if you are going to be able to speak to them.’
A British father and daughter also witnessed the chaos unfold. The unnamed man told The Sun: ‘My daughter said, “Dad, look up there, there’s a guy on the roof”. And all of a sudden it just went mental, it sounded like a load of firecrackers.
‘I would have said about 30 people got shot. There was a guy lying dead on the right hand side of the square. He was shot in the chest.’
A faculty member of the university, Zora Hesova, said people were locked in classrooms inside the building as armed police officers descended on the scene.
Police later said they killed the gunman after they stormed the building and have evacuated everyone who was trapped inside.
‘The gunman was eliminated!!!’ police said on X, formerly Twitter. ‘The building is currently being evacuated and there are several dead and dozens of wounded people on the scene.’
Extraordinary images show the gunman, who was dressed in black, standing on the roof of the faculty building and pointing his rifle with a scope mounted on top at people down below.
Petr Nedoma, the director of the Rudolfinum – a concert hall on the square across from the Faculty of Arts – told Czech broadcaster CT24: ‘Upstairs on the walkway of the Faculty of Arts, I saw a man standing with a gun in his hand and shooting towards the Mánes bridge with certain delays.
‘I watched what was happening from inside the Rudolfinum for a long time. I stayed in the building and was by the windows for as much cover as possible.’
Nedoma added: ‘Then he put his hands up and threw the gun towards the road, it remained lying by the philosophy faculty. Then a lot of people appeared upstairs, I don’t know if it was the police.
‘I left the window and watched the police evacuate people from the Faculty of Philosophy, taking them away with their hands behind their heads in different directions, a large number of cars, people running around.’
Terrified teachers and students at the Charles University Faculty of Arts were instructed to lock themselves in classrooms before they were evacuated.
Klara, a student, told news site iDnes.cz she was among those who police evacuated from the building.
‘It was terribly scary, there were a lot of policemen everywhere, who were shouting at us with submachine guns, telling us to run outside,’ she said.
An email sent to staff and students at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University had said a shooter was in one of its buildings and had told staff to ‘stay put’.
‘Don’t go anywhere, if you’re in the offices, lock them and place furniture in front of the door, turn off the lights,’ the email said.
One student, Deda Mrazek, said she was in the university’s library when the gunman began shooting at his victims.
Sharing a picture of students hiding in the back of a computer lab, Deda wrote: ‘I am OK. I was in the library at the time of the shooting.
‘They sent us to the back of the computer lab where there are no windows. Word has now spread that the gunman is dead.’
She said as soon as they heard the gunman had been killed, the terrified students all called their families to say that they were safe.
The government said they will hold an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the shooting at 9pm.
An armed Police officer patrols near to the scene of a shooting at Charles University in central Prague on Thursday
Members of the emergency service at the scene of a shooting at Charles University in central Prague on Thursday afternoon
Medics wait near the building of Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in downtown Prague on Thursday
Other extraordinary images show terrified students cowering on a ledge high up on a faculty in a bid to hide from the gunman after others were told to barricade themselves in classrooms
Other extraordinary images show terrified students cowering on a ledge high up on a faculty in a bid to hide from the gunman after others were told to barricade themselves in classrooms
One student, Deda Mrazek, said she was in the university’s library when the gunman began shooting at his victims. Sharing a picture of students hiding in the back of a computer lab, Deda wrote: ‘I am OK. I was in the library at the time of the shooting’
Armed police are seen on the balcony of the university in central Prague on Thursday
Police take security measures as several people were killed and injured in a shooting incident near a university in Prague
An armed Police officer patrols near to the scene of a shooting at Charles University in central Prague
An ambulance drives towards the building housing the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in downtown Prague, Czech Republic on Thursday afternoon
Police in the Czech Republic’s capital urged residents to shelter and avoid the area ‘due to an ongoing shooting incident’ close to Charles University in the centre of the city
Police officers stand on the balcony of Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in downtown Prague, Czech Republic, after they stormed the building and killed the shooter
Police officers secure an area after a shooting in downtown Prague, Czech Republic, on Thursday
An ambulance drives towards the building of Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in downtown Prague on Thursday following the shooting
The police have sealed off the square and the area adjacent to the university building, which is located in a busy part of town that has a popular street leading tourists to Old Town Square
‘According to preliminary information, the shooter himself should be dead, there are dead and wounded on site, I will not speculate now about the final number,’ Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said on Czech Television.
Rakusan added ‘no other gunman has been confirmed’ and called on people to follow police instructions.
Police in the Czech Republic’s capital have urged residents to shelter inside and avoid the area due to the shooting.
President Petr Pavel tweeted: ‘I am shocked by the events at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.
‘I would like to express my deep regret and sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims that the shooting claimed.
‘I want to thank the citizens for respecting the instructions of the security forces and providing maximum cooperation.’
The British Embassy in Prague has urged people in the city, a hotspot for tourists, to avoid the around the Charles University and the Faculty of Arts.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala cancelled his trip to the east of the country and was en route to Prague, he said on X.
Gun crime is relatively rare in the Czech Republic. In December 2019, a 42-year-old gunman killed six people at a hospital waiting room in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava before fleeing and fatally shooting himself, police said.
In 2015, a man fatally shot eight people and then killed himself at a restaurant in Uhersky Brod.