Prague university shooting: Student David Kozak named as gunman who left 14 dead in Charles University attack

The gunman who killed 14 people after opening fire at Charles University in Prague has been named as David Kozak.

The 24-year-old opened fire from the fourth floor of the philosophy department building of Charles University, where the gunman was a student, Prague Police Chief Martin Vondrasek said.

Kozak is also believed by police to have killed his father before the attack on Thursday. He’s also suspected in the killing of another man and his two-month-old daughter on December 15 in Prague.

He was described as an excellent student with no criminal record.

The first victim of the mass shooting yesterday was named on Friday as Lenka Hlávková.

The Institute of Music Science at Charles University’s philosophy department posted a message of “deep regret” over her death on its Facebook page.

It read: “On the basis of verified information from the family and with their permission, we are announcing that our colleague and director of the Institute of Musicology of the Faculty of Music of the Faculty of Music, Lenka Hlávková did not survive yesterday’s attack.

“We express our deepest condolences to all the bereaved, first and foremost to the family. This is extremely cruel news for all of us. Let’s stay in support of each other.”

No other victims have been named yet.

Jiri Forman, a Czech journalist, witnessed yesterday’s attack at Charles University.

The reporter bravely shouted at the gunman from Jan Palach Square in an attempt to stop him from shooting at students and filmed the incident.

“Hey, you f****r, here I am, shoot here!” He screamed.

Asked by an officer what was he doing, Forman is heard in the footage shouting: “So that he doesn’t shoot at the people! What do you think I’m am I doing, man? There are people there!”

His actions have won him plaudits in Czech media, but Forman played down suggestions he was a hero.

“Where I stood it was absolutely safe, nobody was there and I knew I could duck behind an obstacle,” he told Reuters on Friday.

“And if he shoots in my direction, he won’t have the people fleeing, they will have a chance to reach cover. I screamed at him and he started shooting in my direction.”

“The policeman I believe shot three times at the attacker. I think this threw him off balance. Then he also hears that police are getting close from inside, so he shot himself,” Mr Forman said.

He added: “I did things I believed were right, and unfortunately, the sad heroes are the relatives who lost their closest ones at this Christmas time, and policemen and rescue services.”

Lone gunman David Kozak shot 14 people dead at Charles University in Prague on Thursday.

The attack happened in the Faculty of Arts building in Jan Palach Square in the city centre, just an eight-minute walk from Prague’s busy Christmas market.

Earlier in the day, a friend of Kozak’s had alerted police to a message she had received from him threatening to commit suicide. Officers then discovered Kozak’s father dead in his home and put out a search warrant for the 24-year-old.

Having determined he was going to Prague, police evacuated another Charles University building he was due to attend a lecture in at 2pm.

Shortly after, the shooting began in the Faculty of Arts.

At the Charles University headquarters, crowds that included Prime Minister Petr Fiala and US Ambassador Bijan Sabet paid tribute to the victims. Some knelt to light candles and lay flowers while others stood crying and hugging each other.

Charles University cancelled all lectures and events on Friday a day after the shooting in the central European country of 10.9 million where over 300,000 people own guns but mass shootings are rare.

“We are here to show our support as fellow students,” said Czech student Daniel Broz.

“I was on the other side of the river and hearing gunshots, pops and not knowing what is going on and then a flurry of police cars passing by was absolutely surreal especially as a Czech who has never witnessed an event similar to this before.”

As Prague mourns its dead and tries to recover from the deadliest mass shooting in the Czech Republic’s history, police revealed how events unfolded on Thursday.

A student at the university, Kozak is believed to have killed his father in his hometown of Hostoun before travelling 24km (15 miles) to the country’s capital to launch the devastating attack.

As more information is revealed about yesterday’s horrific mass shooting in central Prague, Alex Ross takes a closer look at how the incident unfolded according to authorities:

Read the full report below:

Czech Police said they had arrested a man who had said he was ‘inspired’ by yesterday’s shooting and wanted to buy a gun.

The force shared a video of officers arresting the man soon after the call was made and he was identified.

In a separate post on X, they said they had been made aware of several cases of people who were allegedly inspired by the incident in Prague yesterday.

Before shooting 14 people dead at a university building in central Prague, David Kozak had no criminal record. He did, however, own several guns.

The 24-year-old had a proclivity for firearms, with a license to own eight guns, including two long guns, police said.

Police chief Tomas Vondrasek said officers found an arsenal of weapons with a lot of ammunition that the suspect had to carry unnoticed to the university building before opening fire.

In 2021, the Czech Parliament amended the Constitution’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms to give people a right to defend themselves or others with a gun. That move, adopted after more than 100,000 people signed a petition in support, means that the right cannot be limited by a separate law.

In the country of 10.9 million, 314,000 people had a gun license by the end of last year and owned almost a million various weapons.

To get a license, people need to be a Czech resident, be older than 21 (that doesn’t apply for sports and hunting), be in good health, mentally responsible, reliable and without a criminal record.

Written and practical tests, including shooting at a target, are also part of the procedure.But once a person meets all the requirements, the authorities who keep the records don’t need to inform police about the numbers of guns people have, Ales Strach, a senior Prague police officer said Friday.

Political leaders, students, friends of the victims and others came together today to light candles during an impromptu vigil for the victims of a mass shooting at a University in Prague.

“A few of my friends study at the philosophy faculty at Charles University,” said Kristof Unger, a student who attended the vigil. “They have been really traumatized by the shooting there and I just wanted to make them feel a little bit better.”

“We are here to show our support as fellow students,” said Czech student Daniel Broz.

“I was on the other side of the river and hearing gunshots, pops and not knowing what is going on and then a flurry of police cars passing by was absolutely surreal especially as a Czech who has never witnessed an event similar to this before.”

Robert Hanus, another of the vigil’s attendees, said everyone should come together to take a stand against the attack. “This shouldn’t be normalized,” he said.The university’s rector, Milena Kralickova, was also among the throngs lighting candles. “The academic community is shaken, deeply shaken,” she said.

Czech Police have matched a weapon found at the University gunman’s house to one used in the killing of two people in a forest last week.

Detectives had been working on the theory that the killer was responsible for the deaths of a father and his four-month-old daughter last week in the Klanovicky forest near Prague. They believe he chose his victims at random.

Now, authorities confirmed that a weapon used in that incident had been matched to one in the home of the man, named widely as David Kozak, who shot 14 people dead yesterday.

A translation of a Czech Police statement read: “Ballistics expertise has shown a MATCH of the weapon that was used in Klánovický les with the weapon that was found in the house where the shooter from the university lived.”