http://www.ceskenoviny.cz(...)-eight-lives/1185276Czech gunman kills eight, then himselfUhersky Brod, South Moravia/Prague - The shooting in the Druzba (Friendship) restaurant today claimed nine dead, seven men and one woman killed by the gunman who eventually shot himself dead.
It was the most tragic shooting incident in the Czech Republic and one of the worst incidents of this type.
Investigators said the crime had been committed by a man, aged 62, who had a clean criminal record.
Town Mayor Patrik Kuncar told CTK it was a local man who was probably mentally unstable.
Briefly 13:00, the Czech commercial television station Prima was called by a man who said he "has a gun and hostages and will make his own decision."
Shortly afterwards, a man burst into the restaurant in Uhersky Brod and started firing.
"He fired about 25 shots," Kuncar said.
Seven men and a female waiter died, while another woman was seriously injured in the attack.
The perpetrator has reportedly shot himself dead.
Both Prima and the people who managed to escape tipped the police.
Special police units came to the scene. Police President Tomas Tuhy sent a special unit to Uhersky Brod.
The murderer had a gun licence. According to the police, he legally possessed two guns.
Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Social Democrats, CSSD) has stressed this was no terrorist act.
He, however, said in reaction to the shooting that the number of Czechs with firearms might be too high.
State attorney Roman Kafka told CTK that the gunman was motivated by a mixture of personal reasons.
Prima said the man who had called the television before the attack "was mentally quite finished" and complained about harassment the authorities ignored.
Kafka has declined to speculate on whether the perpetrator had any psychological problems.
Court expert Jiri Jelen said the gunman was obviously a psychopath who may have suffered from inferiority complex and wanted to create a gruesome scene.
Kuncar said the incident had shaken the town with 17,000 inhabitants.
"It would never occur to me that something like this might happen in a town of our size," Kuncar said.
He said the area had previously seen a tragedy in 2012 when four girls died in the Lopenik automobile race.
Sympathies to the families were expressed by a number of politicians. Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD) said he was shocked, calling the event an exceptional tragedy.
He asked Chovanec to supervise personally the police investigation.
It has been one of the most tragic incidents of this type in Czech history. It can be compared with what was done by Olga Hepnarova, 22. In July 1973 she deliberately drove in a lorry into a crowd of people at a tram station in Prague 7.
She said she had been motivated by "settling her accounts with society."
She caused the death of eight people, injuring many others. In 1975, she was executed.
The attack in Uhersky Brod made headlines in prominent media outlets.