Kauhajoki police officer acquitted on gun permit charges

Prosecution and next of kin of shooting victims expected to appeal

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The police officer who allowed the gunman behind the Kauhajoki school massacre in 2008 keep his weapon the day before the shootings, was acquitted of charges of negligence by Kauhajoki District Court on Friday.
      The court believed the defendant when he said that there was nothing suspicious in the behaviour of school shooter Matti Saari during his police interview the day before the killings.
      Both the prosecution in the case and the next of kin of the victims of the shootings are expected to appeal the acquittal.
     
The families of the victims wanted the police officer to be convicted on ten counts of aggravated negligent homicide.
      In addition to failing to get the decision that they would have liked, the family members were ordered to pay EUR 32,000 in court costs. The sum will rise if their appeal is rejected. It was later pointed out that the state can opt to refrain from taking the money.
     
The three-member panel was not completely unanimous about their decision. One court judge would have convicted the police officer, and given him a reprimand as punishment.
      Pirkanmaa district prosecutor Jouko Nurminen had expected a conviction, and plans to decide on a possible appeal in the coming week.
      A majority on the court did not find the defendant’s action to be negligent: it found that in retrospect, the decision that he made proved to be wrong, but no official duties were violated.
     
An important question was how serious a threat there was of a shooting a few days before the incident, when several officials at the Kauhajoki police were thinking about Saari’s firearms permit.
      According to several police officers who testified at the trial, the threat was a real one. However, the court found that the suspicion of a danger was not as strong as the testimony suggested.
      If the threat would have been considered truly serious, there would not have been a delay in taking the gun away from Saari.
      What the defendant ultimately did was to study the background material and interview Saari, but did not find any reason to take the gun away on what proved to be the day before he used it.
     
The court found that the defendant had acted within the limits of his discretion. It also emphasised that Saari was the one who actually committed the mass killing.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police officer in Kauhajoki shooting case to be charged with negligence (27.1.2009)
  Police officer who let school shooter keep weapon faces criminal charges (1.10.2008)
  Eleven die in shooting bloodbath (24.9.2008)
  Kauhajoki policeman hopes publicity might be punishment enough (15.12.2009)
  Child of Kauhajoki school shooting victim to pursue claim of negligent manslaughter against police officer (27.4.2009)
  Kauhajoki police officer claims there were no legal grounds to confiscate killer’s handgun (27.3.2009)

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