New Prague shooter details emerge

The 24-year-old suspect allegedly laid out his plans in a series of Telegram posts

Czech Police have named the perpetrator of a mass shooting that left 14 people dead in Prague on Thursday. The killer, identified by police as David K., a 24-year-old student, allegedly killed his father in his hometown of Kladno on Thursday before traveling to the Czech capital on a suicide mission.

Czech media later named the shooter as David Kozak and published his picture.

Police President Martin Vondrasek told reporters that Kozak made a number of social media posts prior to his rampage and was “inspired by a similar terrible event abroad,” without revealing further details. The killer was “saying that he wanted to kill himself,” Vondrasek added.

However, Czech media unearthed screenshots from a Telegram account apparently opened by Kozak earlier this month. In a Russian-language post on December 9, Kozak allegedly stated that he would use the platform as a “diary as I move towards [a] school shooting.” In a series of updates on December 10, the poster introduced himself as “David” and said that he “want[s] to do [a] school shooting and possibly suicide,” naming Russian school shooters Alina Afanaskina and Ilnaz Galyaviev as inspiring his killing spree.