Gunman kills two teenagers in Finland shooting spree
A gunman has killed two teenagers and wounded seven other people in a shooting spree in southern Finland. A suspect is under arrest.
The killer started shooting at people from a low rooftop in the centre of Hyvinkaa, about 30 miles north of the capital Helsinki, police said.
Local reports said he used two rifles to target crowds of people, mainly teenagers, who were standing outside bars and restaurants in the town at about 2am on Saturday morning.
A man and a woman, both aged 18, were killed. Two people were critically injured, including a police officer who was called to the scene.
Markku Tuominen, the officer in charge of the investigation, said a suspect dressed in combat fatigues was found in woodland near the scene of the shootings several hours later.
The 18-year-old man did not resist arrest.
Police said his motives were unclear and they have been unable to ascertain whether he knew any of the victims personally.
They added that the suspect did not have a criminal record or a licence for the rifles, and presumably got the guns from friends and relatives.
Finland has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world and a series of mass shootings prompted the government to toughen its gun laws last year.
In November 2007, an 18-year-old student killed eight people at a high school near Helsinki before turning the gun on himself.
In 2008 a 22-year-old killed 10 people in a small western town of Kauhajoki before shooting himself.
And in December 2009 a man shot four people dead in a shopping mall in Espoo after knifing his ex-girlfriend to death. The man also later killed himself.
President blames ‘competitive society’
Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto said: “This has been a very sad morning. I want of course to express my deepest condolences to close friends of the victims and the bereaved.
“This certainly touches us all. I hope those who were injured will soon get better.”
One reason can be the competitive society in which we live. Many of us set ourselves too ambitious goals, and on the other hand we are not prepared to cope with failures, which can lead to quite desperate spirals of negative emotions. Sauli Niinisto
In an interview on national television, the president added: “Life seems to be somehow oppressive, and acts like this and others that we have seen for sure manifest the fact that in some human is totally mentally upset.
“And it is actually a challenge to us all. Because it would of course be good to be able to see in advance the signs that are there however in some way.
“I don’t know if one can assess social values to the background of these kind of acts. Certainly there are false values that absolutely detach some individuals from the kind of life that we call humane behaviour.
“One reason can be the competitive society in which we live. Many of us set ourselves too ambitious goals, and on the other hand we are not prepared to cope with failures, which can lead to quite desperate spirals of negative emotions.”