A 14-year-old student who shot at least nine people dead, including eight of his fellow pupils, at a school in southeastern Turkey had used an image referencing a 2014 US mass killer, Elliot Rodger, on his WhatsApp profile, Turkish police said on Thursday.
In Turkey’s second school shooting in just two days, the middle school student also wounded 20 other people in Wednesday’s attack in Kahramanmaras province before taking his own life, shocking a nation where school shootings are very rare.
In a statement, the Turkish police department said initial findings showed that the assailant had used an image referencing the US gunman Rodger, who killed six college students near Santa Barbara, California, in 2014.
“Initial findings indicate no connection to terrorism, the incident is believed to be an individual attack,” the statement also said.
Rodger had expressed frustration about his lack of success with women in an internet manifesto before his rampage, and he was later praised by a number of perpetrators of school shootings.
It was not immediately clear whether the Turkish teenager had the same motivation as Rodger.
The attacker used five pistols that belonged to his police officer father in the attack, and the court jailed the father pending trial, the Kahramanmaras prosecutor’s office said in a separate statement on Thursday.
In its examination, the prosecutor’s office found a document on the attacker’s computer dated April 11 that indicated a major attack would be carried out “in the near future.”
Separately, 83 people across Turkey have been detained for “glorifying crime and criminals” since the school shootings on Tuesday and Wednesday, the police said, adding that authorities had blocked access to 940 social media accounts and 93 Telegram groups for the same reason.
Turkey has been spared the epidemic of school shootings that has plagued the United States for decades. This attack — the second in two days — has shattered that sense of safety.
The fact that the shooter used an image of Elliot Rodger, a mass killer who has become a dark icon for some young men, raises questions about the global spread of violent online subcultures.
The jailing of the father, a police officer whose service pistols were used in the attack, adds another layer of accountability. For now, Turkey is left grieving — and searching for answers.
Sources: Reuters
