Ostrava hospital attack

The perpetrator entered the hospital in the early morning and wandered through its hallways. He briefly stopped at the cardiology waiting room and then at the gastroenterology waiting room, both of which were almost empty.[8]

He then entered the traumatology waiting room on the third floor of the hospital building at about 7:15 a.m. There were about thirty people in the room, all of them either partially immobile (on a wheelchair or with a limb in splint) or accompanying a partially immobile family member. The perpetrator first crossed through the waiting room towards doctor's office, however the doors there were still locked. He rattled the locked door, but his apparent attempt to open them failed.[9] Then he was standing quietly with an illegal CZ 75B pistol in hand in a low position by his leg.[10] He raised the pistol to his own head for a few moments, but did not pull the trigger.[10] Several witnesses expressed regret that there was nobody legally armed inside to stop the perpetrator during this time.[10]

After this, he opened fire on the people inside. After initial three shots, the firearm jammed. According to an eyewitness, it was clear that the perpetrator is not practiced in using the gun. It took him about five seconds to clear the malfunction. The perpetrator was visibly shaking and loudly gritting his teeth.[9]

After clearing the malfunction, the perpetrator continued with attack, aiming at victims' heads and necks, killing six adults. Two of the victims were off-duty prison guards, one with a leg in a splint and the other accompanying his minor daughter. A third victim in the waiting room also had law enforcement training, having left the prison service ten years prior. At the moment of the attack, all three were unarmed.[11][8] Three other people sustained injuries, one of them dying several days later.

When first responders arrived, the attacker had already escaped the scene.[1][12]

Police received the first emergency call at 7:19 a.m. and the first police unit reached the location of the incident five minutes later. By the time they arrived the perpetrator had already left the hospital.[1] All Czech policemen are armed with pistols and a typical patrol car includes two policemen who usually have at least one long select-fire firearm (HK MP5, MP7 or G36) in the trunk, as well as bullet proof vests. Aside from these general purpose patrols Czech police also have a system of special "first order" patrol cars, whose two policemen have heavy body armor, a long select-fire firearm each, and extensive active killer training. The first order patrol cars are positioned so as to reach any similar incident within ten minutes anywhere in the country and thus overcome the delay needed for arrival of a complete SWAT team.

The perpetrator drove away from the hospital in a grey Renault Laguna, at some point taking down its registration plates, possibly to avoid detection by automatic traffic cameras. Three hours later, the perpetrator arrived at his parents' house in Jilešovice, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) kilometers from the hospital.[8] There he confessed to the crime and told his mother that he was going to kill himself.[1] His mother called the police and informed them about her son being the perpetrator, his whereabouts and a description of his car.[8] By this time the police had arrested eight men in the hospital, its vicinity and elsewhere in Ostrava who fit the initial general description of the perpetrator, which later turned out to be completely wrong.[8]

The perpetrator's car was found by a helicopter shortly after his mother's call in Děhylov.[8] As ground units closed in, he self-inflicted a head shot wound. Although he was initially conscious and communicated with first responders, he then succumbed to his injury after 30 minutes of resuscitation attempts.[1]

The perpetrator's family and friends had observed his mental state gradually deteriorating over a long period of time. According to them his mental state significantly worsened throughout September 2019, about four months before the attack. The perpetrator became obsessed with a belief that he suffered from a fatal illness, probably pancreatic cancer. However, numerous hospital visits and detailed examinations ruled this possibility out. The perpetrator was seeking further medical examinations while on sick leave from work about a month before attack.[7]

During one medical examination, the perpetrator's partner requested that the doctor issue a request for psychiatric evaluation, claiming that the perpetrator had become "impossible to live with". She stated that the perpetrator was convinced that he would die imminently, often breaking down and crying.[7]

Although a psychiatric evaluation was arranged, the perpetrator did not go through with it. Instead, he sought further examination for cancer. The perpetrator had spent some time in a psychiatric ward two years before the attack following hospitalisation for tetany, which is often accompanied by depression.[7]

The perpetrator had three previous criminal convictions, including one for a violent crime.[5] He had been also hospitalized in psychiatrical ward. Both of these facts rendered him ineligible to legally possess a firearm in the Czech Republic.

The perpetrator used CZ 75 pistol that was made about 30 years before as non-functional cut-away replica for purposes of education and training. This free-to-buy cutaway was later illegally modified to full functionality. Police experts had not encountered similar conversion of a cut-away before and noted that it was done in a very sophisticated way. Nevertheless, the firearm jammed repeatedly during the attack.[13]