Beiträge mit tag "ESC

Alright, since killing sprees have become all the rage (literally…) here in Germany and since this is a major research field for me and also because most of the available material is in German, I decided to drop the “Dude, you bent my tower” series for a while and start a “Brief history of the killing spree” instead.
While the cases of Tim Kretschmer and Georg R. are far more recent, the Steinhaeuser case is still widely considered “the original school shooting” here. That’s why I start with him.

The following information is taken from the final report of the official investigation conducted by the state of Thuringia. The unabridged report in German language is available for download here.

On the 26th of April 2002 the former pupil Robert Steinhaeuser (original spelling: Robert Steinhäuser) armed himself with a Glock 17 9mm semiautomatic pistol and a Mossberg 590 pump-action shotgun and entered the Johannes Gutenberg Gymnasium in Erfurt, Eastern Germany to take revenge for having been expelled.
He had faked a doctor’s certificate to circumvent an examination but was caught and kicked from the shool by the headmistress (US English: principal).

He shot twelve teachers, a secretary, two pupils and a policeman before killing himself in room 111 with a contact-shot to the temple using the Glock after one of the teachers had locked the door behind him. He did not fire a single shot with the shotgun.
As a sports marksman he was licensed to buy and own both weapons and ammunition of the above type.

On his killing spree he carried a total of roughly 110 rounds of 9mm Luger in five clips and 19 twelve-gauge shotgun shells made by Baschieri&Bellagri (9 in the gun, 10 more in his pocket) with him. Furthermore he had a Cordura-holster for the Glock strapped to his thigh, was dressed all in black and wore a black ski mask and hearing protection.

In one of the restrooms on the first floor the police found a stash of 142 12-gauge shells, 338 rounds of 9mm Luger, a large clip filled with 31 rounds, a small clip filled with 17 rounds of 9mm Luger, a machete and a diver’s knife.
72 bullet casings were found in the building, they had all been fired from Steinhaeuser’s Glock 17 except for one which had been fired by one of the policemen after Steinhaeuser had opened fire on them in the schoolyard.

While a lot of information circulating the internet is correct, I’d like to clarify some things here:

1. NOT A SINGLE SHOT was fired from the Mossberg.

2. The dead policeman was not shot inside the building when he “stuck his head through the door”!
He and his parter arrived second on the scene and observed their colleague firing a shot towards the schoolyard. The victim Go. and his partner waited a short while (“…a while…how long I cannot tell at all…”, p. 112) before proceeding towards the building. On the way Go. was still busy putting on his body armor when he was struck in the neck by a bullet fired from a “window almost directly above him” (p. 112). When he fell, he lost the body armor (it was the type one closes at the side, at least the back part “flipped to the side again”, p. 112) and was hit by three more shots. The fatal one went straight through his chest, from the fact that the fatal bullet was found in his clothing, the investigators assumed the bullet “hit him lying down”.

3. Due to a book which was published by Ines Geipel after the killing spree (“Fuer heute reicht’s”, = “That’s enough for today”, Steinhaeusers last words to the teacher who then locked him into room 111. When Steinhaeuser walked up to him and pointed the gun in his face, the teacher, Mr. Heise said: “You can shoot me now…” ) a lot of rumours spread in the German media that Steinhauser had taken the infamous “Tilidin”, an opioid-based painkiller (a prescription drug in Germany and Switzerland, but illegal in the USA) which is said to be used by various gangs before acts of gang violence. The drug causes rage when overdosed while at the same time it makes the aggressors “almost immune to pain”. Well…it’s a PAINkiller after all…;)
Whether the attributed effects are true in general is a different story, but regarding Steinhaeuser the post-mortem toxscreen was clean. No alcohol, no drugs in his blood (p. 60). They found some weed in his jacket, though…
So the Tilidin-story is clearly a hoax. In the quoted interviews, friends of Steinhaeuser’s admitted, they had “experimented” with various drugs, including Tilidin, LSD etc. The rumour hence is obviously “creative interpretation” which was then picked up by almost every German tabloid paper.

4. The reason for Steinhaeusers killing spree may not be as simple as it may appear to people unfamiliar with the German school system.

I. He was UNLAWFULLY expelled from the school! While faking a doctor’s certificate to circumvent an examination is forgery, this alone would not have been enough to kick him out for good. The headmistress had commited an ultra vires action by expelling a first-time offender rather than just suspending him for a certain time.
II. After expulsion he was left with absolutely nothing in his hands. In 2002 the law in Thuringia required pupils who wanted an intermediate graduation certificate before moving on to higher education (see also: Fun Facts about Education in Germany) to take the necessary examinations at a school of the respective type.
While here in North-Rhine-Westfalia for example one only needs to have a certain average at the end of the tenth grade to be awarded the “Hauptschulabschluss” or “Realschulabschluss” regardless of whether they want to stay in school and go for the “Abitur” or leave, in Thuringia this was not the case at that time.
Steinhauser had attempted the “Realschulabschluss”-exam, but had failed. His only hope now was going on and passing the “Abitur”. Not being a particularly good pupil, Steinhaeuser had had his doubts about whether he would make it.
The expulsion meant, he would not have had either of the possible certificates. Neither the “Realschulabschluss” nor the “Abitur”. Basically a future employer would have treated him as if he had never been to school at all…
I think with this background in mind, the desperation in Steinhauser and the anger towards the school and the teachers who he blamed for his failure becomes a lot more understandable and imaginable.

That’s enough for today….

cd