13-year-old suspect

Fuss over amok threat at a secondary school

The 13-year-old is said to have written in a TikTok chat that he wanted to shoot around with a gun.

(Bild: Michael Dwyer)

(Bild: VS Gramastetten)

(Bild: Dostal Harald)

Was it just bragging, a bad joke or perhaps serious after all? A 13-year-old is said to have announced on TikTok that he would use a weapon in a secondary school in Mühlviertel. Panic broke out among the children's parents, some of whom did not send their children to class. It is now being investigated whether the teenager is really behind it.

"Have you heard? The police are at school!" There was a huge commotion in Gramastetten on Wednesday morning: The local executive guarded the middle school and elementary school, which are located in the same building complex, and after this "de-escalating measure" turned up again at lunchtime to investigate on site. What happened?

Delayed reaction
A 13-year-old is said to have written in a TikTok chat the previous week that he would show up at the school with a gun and shoot around with it. At first there was no reaction, but then the parents of one of the pupils and the principal jointly reported the incident to the Gramastetten police.

After a thorough investigation by the police, a suspect was identified. Both the school and the police reacted immediately and professionally and are continuing their intensive efforts. The safety and well-being of our pupils is our top priority and we take the concerns of parents very seriously.

Bildungsdirektor Alfred Klampfer

Bild: © Harald Dostal

Investigations are still ongoing
Initially, the letter was attributed to a man from Linz (55), but he is in a wheelchair and was blindsided when the police arrived at his door with a search warrant. It then emerged that the suspected teenager had set up the TikTok account for him and then used it himself.

However, according to the police, the investigation into this has not yet been completed. This is likely to take some time, as contact must be made with TikTok's European headquarters in Ireland for forensic data comparison.

There was great excitement
In the meantime, there was a great deal of excitement in the secondary school and especially in the elementary school, where nobody had heard about the threats. This was because there had already been extensive speculation in the middle school's parents' WhatsApp groups about a possible imminent rampage at the school. As a result, several parents are said to have left their children at home instead of sending them to class.

Information to parents
The principal of the secondary school contacted the parents: "The suspicious person, from whom chat histories with threatening content emanated, was found at the home address in Linz. Nothing relevant was found during the search of the apartment." Postscript: "It is only ever about this person mentioned above, who, according to the current state of the investigation, never posed a specific threat."

Kopmmentar

Wenn aus „Spaß“ Ernst wird

Do you remember that? In the past, the rather contemptuous term "half-wits" was often used to describe aggressive teenagers. It was mean, but it got to the heart of the matter quite well. Nowadays, every verbal display of strength from this age group has to be taken seriously, even if common sense suggests the opposite.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV, Alexander Schwarzl, Markus Wenzel)

After all, not every scatterbrain is harmless. Some are a deadly danger. Who, for example, would have taken the 20-year-old assassin from Vienna seriously before he went out armed and indiscriminately murdered four innocent people in an Islamist frenzy?