German Police Learn More Of Gunman
The teen-age gunman who killed 16 people and himself at his former school had violent computer games at home and told his unsuspecting parents hours before his rampage that he was going to class to take a math exam, police said.
As investigators developed a fuller picture of the 19-year-old behind one of the deadliest school shootings ever, they said Robert Steinhaeuser managed to keep his parents in the dark about his expulsion from school for forging a doctor's note — a humiliation that authorities believe triggered Friday's rampage.
"The parents thought he was going to school every day and was successfully moving toward his high school diploma," Erfurt Police Chief Rainer Grube said, citing statements by the parents to police. Officials said the mother wished her son good luck on the exam as he left the house.
Officials said he walked into the building just before 11 a.m., used a bathroom to change into all-black clothing and a ski mask, then fatally shot 13 teachers — more than a third of the faculty — two teen-age students and a policeman. Police said he fired about 40 rounds before turning his 9 mm Glock pistol on himself inside the Johann Gutenberg Gymnasium.
Grube said authorities believe the killer had a Web site and were investigating a home page bearing his name and picture. But someone changed the page 12 hours after his death, Grube said, raising the possibility that the current version is bogus.
Police confiscated from Steinhaeuser's home violence-laden comics and a number of computer games that featured "intensive weapons usage," Grube said. He said Steinhaeuser's mother told police she had not noticed any unusual behavior in her son, described by officials and acquaintances as a gun club member who had few if any close friends.
A quirk of Germany's education system also may have contributed to the tragedy. Thuringia, where Erfurt is the state capital, is alone in denying even an intermediate diploma to students who go beyond 10th grade, but then fail twice to pass final exams.
Officials said Steinhaeuser had failed last year, and his expulsion a few weeks ago deprived him of the second — and last — chance for a full diploma, necessary to attend a university or get a decent job.
Crowds continued to gather at the school entrance Sunday. Flowers overflowed from the steps onto the sidewalk, and candles sputtered in the rain. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer became the latest national figure to pay his respects, placing a bouquet and consoling the tearful school principal as she told him about the horrific events.
Officials canceled classes for at least a week and said students would receive counseling at Erfurt's city hall. The school remained sealed Sunday as police continued to secure clues.
Erfurt Mayor Manfred Ruge said after meeting the school's parents, teachers and students Sunday that they had resolved to clean up and reopen the building as soon as possible to "also seize the chance to make a new beginning."
One 12th-grader, Michaela Seidel, choked back tears as she declared that the students would be scarred for a long time.
"It will take years to get over this," she told a news conference. "At this time, none of us understands anything."
Everyone opposed putting a memorial outside the school, she said.
"We don't want a huge plaque in front of it that reminds us of what happened every time we pass by," said Seidel, who had finished a final exam in math and left the building 10 minutes before the shooting began.
Providing fresh evidence that Steinhaeuser was bent on killing teachers, police chief Grube said the witnesses recalled the gunman bursting into some classrooms but leaving if he saw no teachers. The two teen-age victims, a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, were killed when Steinhaeuser fired through a closed door, Grube said.
As debate grew over how to protect schools against violence and curb youths' legal access to firearms, some politicians called for tighter controls over Germany's estimated 20,000 rifle clubs. Steinhaeuser was a member of an Erfurt shooting club and last October got a permit to buy weapons, police said Sunday.
The political debate on Germany's gun laws intensified on Sunday as Bernhard Vogel, state premier of the eastern state of Thuringia of which Erfurt is capital, urged examination of how youngsters could gain access to guns as shooting club members.
A new gun law passed by the lower house of parliament on Friday, as Steinhaeuser was carrying out his attack, actually lowers to 10 from 12 the age at which children can use air guns.
"We propose the government, states and coalition parties sit down next week to look again at the law in the light of the events in Erfurt," said Cem Ozdemir, spokesman on home affairs for the Greens, the junior partners in government.
There are 10 million legally held weapons in this nation of 82 million people. Police said Steinhaeuser had licenses for both his weapons and for two more that he was not carrying.
Interior Minister Otto Schily conceded that despite its tough gun control laws, which require among other things for applicants to pass rigorous exams that can take up to nine months, Germany might need further restrictions.
In a sign that the bloodbath may figure in the campaign for national elections this year, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's conservative rival, Edmund Stoiber, said violent video games should also be banned.
"We have to take a tougher line against those who peddle these sorts of 'killer games'," Stoiber said. He will visit Erfurt on Monday.
Meanwhile, a history teacher gave a chilling account of how he cut short the killing spree when he confronted the startled gunman in the hallway, pushed him into a room and locked the door.
Rainer Heise, now hailed by German media as the "hero of Erfurt," said he recalled Steinhaeuser pointing his fingers gun-style at another teacher two years ago when he was caught smoking on a field trip.
In an interview at his Erfurt home, the 60-year-old teacher said he doesn't know why he survived while others were killed.
"Perhaps he just liked me. Perhaps he didn't think I was bad," Heise said.
Grube said investigators are interviewing Heise and that there is "evidence to support his story." He said police found the killer's body in a storage room that was locked with the key on the outside of the door.
"For me he's one of the heroes, probably the biggest one of all those who were out there," said Seidel, the Gutenberg senior.