A shooting incident in a finnish mall

[Gunhead]

Link to BBC

The story is just few hours old and police is still looking for the suspect.
Four dead, no news of other casualties.
This really is a horrific way to end the year.
I hope they catch whoever is guilty alive this time.

-Gunhead

[cosmicalstorm]

Suicide bombers, school-shootings and spree-killings. A lot of crazy stuff in such a small country. I live in Sweden so this is uncanny. I'd love to pretend that these incidents were some kind of America-only problem.

[Gunhead]

Well, finnish papers are reporting about fifth victim who is the suspects wife.

-Gunhead

[His Divine Shadow]

Shooter is a 44 year old kosovo albanian named Ibrahim Shkupolli. He has earlier convictions and is known to the police and also has had a restraining order on him, probably with regards to his wife.

Given his earlier involvement with the police, serious criminal background it stems to reason he was using illegal firearms (he has been arrested for such before).

He is believed to be moving about in a black BWM, registry nr RYH-488.

[Edi]

Yes, the wife was found shot at the shooter's apartment.

The guy is still at large, train traffic at Leppävaara is cut off since the trains don't stop at that station for the time being. The suspect is still at large, but the police will hold a press conference in about ten minutes. There's likely to be updates after that.

[His Divine Shadow]

Police has posted an image of the perpetrator:

[Gunhead]

The suspected shooter has been found dead by the police in an apartment in Espoo.
All the victims we're employees at the mall including the fifth victim who was the suspects girlfriend not wife.

-Gunhead

[Tiriol]

Some links for those interested:

YLE News - The National Bureau of Investigation confirms that the suspect had made threats in the past and a more detailed outline of what has happened, including some eye witness testimony.

NBI: Suspect Had Made Threats

Ibrahim Shkupolli, who is believed to have shot and killed five people in Espoo Thursday before taking his own life, made numerous threats of violence in the past. Chief Inspector Tero Haapala of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation told YLE that police were aware of his repeated threats against his ex-girlfriend.

Haapala said that investigators are looking into the various threats Shkupolli made in the past. Police are not sure if he visited the Sello shopping centre on Wednesday to make more threats, or not. Chief Inspector Haapala added that now in hindsight it can be said that in addition to a restraining order against him initiated by his ex-girlfriend, other measures should perhaps have been considered.

In addition to convictions in 2003 and 2007 on weapons violations, Shkupolli also had a record for theft, drug charges and making threats of violence against others.

His ex-girlfriend, who was one of his victims on Thursday, was employed at the Sello shopping centre. As of Thursday evening, it was still unclear if Shkupolli shot and killed her before or after he went to the mall where he shot four others.

The restraining order issued by an Espoo court noted that Shkupolli had threatened the life and safety of his ex-girlfriend and her family. It was the view of the court that he was capable of carrying out his threats.

It also noted that Shkupolli had, in the past, gone to the Sello shopping centre to threaten his former partner.

YLE

Police: Six Dead Following Shooting Rampage

Police have confirmed to YLE that a sixth person found dead in Espoo on Thursday was the perpetrator of a shooting rampage at the Sello shopping mall. Four people were shot dead at the shopping centre on Thursday. A fifth victim, an ex-girlfriend of the shooter, was found dead in a flat in Espoo.

Following the incident, police began a manhunt for the suspect, Ibrahim Shkupolli. They said he was considered armed and dangerous, and had run-ins with the police in the past.

The Helsinki District Court sentenced Shkupolli to a fine in 2007 for firearm violation for illegal possession of a 9 mm handgun and ammunition. The Espoo District Court had also fined Shkupolli for illegal possession of a 7.65 calibre handgun and ammunition in 2003. His ex-girlfriend had sought and received a restraining order against him.

The shooting was reported to police at 10.08 am. Espoo Police say three men and one woman, all employed at the Prisma grocery store at the shopping centre, were shot dead at the mall. The ex-girlfriend was also employed at Prisma. The mall was closed following the incident.

A number of police vehicles and ambulances rushed to the scene, just west of Helsinki. Crowds were standing outside the modern mall in bright, bitterly cold weather.

According to an eyewitness, one or more people were shot at the Prisma grocery store. One employee was seen lying on the floor in the upper level of the shop. A man dressed in black was seen walking toward the Citymarket grocery shop.

The director of the shopping centre says that the Prisma and Citymarket shops were immediately evacuated. A YLE reporter on the scene reported around 11.30 that the entire mall had been evacuated. The mall was re-opened late in the afternoon although shops and most other facilities remained closed for the holiday.

"Chaotic Situation"

An eyewitness, Kari Harjula, who was in a check-out queue at Citymarket, told YLE:

"I started to hear a lot of shouting from the outer doors of Citymarket and Sello, telling everybody to get out. The customers and employees were wondering what was going on. Soon some police ran in with riot shields and serious expressions on their faces. They yelled at everybody to get out; that the shopping centre was being evacuated. The situation was chaotic; there were a lot of police inside and outside. From a layman's point of view, it looked like a massive operation."

VR State Railways confirmed that police ordered trains not to stop at the adjacent Leppävaara station. A YLE reporter said police officers had been checking passengers on local trains, including at the Ilmala and Pasila stations in Helsinki. Train and bus traffic in the area returned to normal just after 4 PM.

Finland known for shootings

Finland has been the target of two school shootings in recent years. In November 2007, eight people were killed in a school shooting in Jokela, in southern Finland. In September 2008, ten people were shot dead in another school shooting in Kauhajoki, in western Finland.

In 2002, a young man detonated a bomb killing seven people including himself at the Myyrmanni shopping mall in Vantaa, in southern Finland.

All three perpetrators were killed during the attacks.

The gunman in Thursday's shootings, Ibrahim Shkupolli, was an Albanian Kosovar who was a long-time resident of Finland. Serbian officials told AFP that he was born in Mitrovica, and had no criminal record in Serbia. The shooter used a police-style handgun, most likely a 9 mm weapon. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen told the press that the gun was unlicensed. As of Thursday evening, police had not confirmed the statement.

The motive for the rampage has not been fully established, but police believe that it was related to the strained relations between the gunman and his ex-girlfriend.

YLE, AFP

BBC News - Gunman's body has been recovered and his motivations are suspected to be of domestic origin; also some information about Finnish gun permits.

Gunman's body found after Finland shootings

Finnish police have confirmed they have found the body of a gunman responsible for killing five people in a shooting rampage in the southern city of Espoo.

Investigators said 43-year-old Ibrahim Shkupolli shot dead three men and a woman with a 9mm pistol at a grocery shop inside the Sello shopping centre.

The body of Shkupolli's ex-girlfriend, who also worked at the shop, was later found dead at a flat in the city.

The incident is Finland's third major shooting in the past two years.

Police were first notified about the shooting inside the Prisma grocery store at 1008 local time (0808 GMT) on Thursday.

A witness told Finland's state broadcaster, YLE, that the gunman was dressed in black and appeared to have opened fire at random, hitting one man in the head and a woman in the stomach.

The victims were Prisma employees aged 27, 40, 42 and 45. Two were shot on the shop's first floor, the other two on its second floor, police said.

Another witness said chaos had ensued after the first shots were heard.

"There were loads of people who were crying, and many salespeople who were completely panicked," the witness told Finnish radio.

The gunman was later seen walking towards another shop. He then disappeared, sparking a major manhunt. The shopping centre was evacuated and cordoned off by armed police, and trains were not allowed to stop at the nearby Leppavaara railway station.

'Domestic' motive

At a later news conference, police announced a Prisma employee had also been found dead at her flat in the outskirts of the city. It later emerged that the victim was Shkupolli's ex-girlfriend.

Investigators said they believed her killing had a "domestic" motive, and that there had been a restraining order in place.

"The four victims in the shopping centre were, in a way, outsiders. It looks like the incident is linked to the fifth victim," Chief Inspector Jukka Kaski told a news conference.

"She seems to have been the gunman's main target and the whole shooting is tied up with the relationship between her and the gunman," he added.

Shkupolli then returned to his own home and turned the gun on himself, police said.

Shkupolli was an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo who moved to Finland in 1990, shortly after which he began a relationship with the woman found dead on Thursday, according to Finnish media reports.

Their relationship broke down for the final time last year, when she told police he had threatened to kill her. A restraining order against him was later granted by a local court.

Shkupolli, who worked for a warehousing company organising deliveries to the Prisma shop, was reportedly also married to a woman of Albanian descent, with whom he had a family.

He had a previous conviction for causing bodily harm and had twice been fined for illegal possession of a handgun, in 2003 and 2007, according to YLE.

Gun laws tightened

There is a long tradition of hunting in Finland, which has vast areas of forest and wilderness, but until recently gun crime has been rare.

But two deadly shootings in recent years focused attention on gun laws in a country where young people were permitted to own and use a firearm at 15 years of age if they had parental consent.

My parents were just going up the escalator from the first floor when police started shouting at them to get out of the building
Antti
BBC reader, Espoo

In November 2007, an 18-year-old went on a gun rampage at his school in Tuusula, killing seven pupils and a teacher, before turning the gun on himself. He had posted a video warning of the attack on the internet.

Then, in September 2008, a 22-year-old trainee chef killed 10 people at a college before killing himself.

He, too, had put a video on the internet showing himself shooting a gun. After doing that he was interviewed by police, but they decided it was not sufficient reason to revoke his gun licence.

After the second attack, stricter rules on permits for pistols and revolvers were introduced.

Handgun permits would no longer be granted to first-time applicants, the interior ministry said.

Instead, they must train for at least a year at a gun club before being allowed to apply for a permit.

All applicants must also provide a note from a doctor about their mental health and sit an interview with police.

This has truly been a dark New Year's Eve for Finland. My best wishes and prayers go to those who lost people close to them in this violent and deadly outburst.