Finland gunman kills 2
An 18-year-old gunman killed two people and wounded seven others in what appeared to be a random shooting in a southern Finnish town, police said on Saturday.
Officers arrested the suspect near Hyvinkaa, some five hours after he fired several shots from a low rooftop at people gathered outside a restaurant just before 2 am (local time on Friday), said detective chief inspector Markku Tuominen.
The suspect, a local man from Hyvinkaa, 50 km north of the capital, Helsinki, did not resist arrest, Tuominen said.
“The man was found with two weapons... including a hunting rifle,” Tuominen said, adding that police knew of no possible motive pending an investigation.
The gunman killed an 18-year-old woman and an 18-year-old man, as well as critically wounded a 23-year-old woman police officer who arrived at the scene soon after Hyvinkaa police received an alert.
Shootings are not uncommon in Finland where there are 650,000 officially recognised gun owners in a population of 5.4 million people, with strong hunting traditions.
In recent years, Finland also has seen two deadly school shootings. In 2008, a culinary student killed nine fellow students and a teacher before shooting himself at a vocational school in the western town of Kauhajoki. A year earlier, an 18-year-old killed six fellow students, a nurse and the principal at a high school in Tuusula.
