Much advance information about massacre on Internet
Auvinen admired killers at Virginia Tech and Columbine
Before Wednesday's massacre at the Jokela School, 18-year-old school pupil Pekka-Eric Auvinen had placed a large amount of advance information on the Internet, hinting at an impending attack of some kind.
Auvinen's identity was established on Internet message boards very quickly after the shootings. He appears to have wanted his name, picture, and writings to be made public as soon as possible.
Auvinen had placed a video on the YouTube website on Monday showing him in a snowy forest shooting an apple with a handgun. Although there were no other people appearing in the video, it was titled "Me shooting with Catherine".
On Wednesday morning, an hour or two before the shooting began, he uploaded a short video onto YouTube titled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007".
Before the one-minute video was removed by YouTube, it had been watched over 200,000 times. It first shows a picture of the Jokela School, followed by red-tinted photographs of a man with a gun, all with heavy metal music playing in the background.
All videos submitted by user name Sturmgeist89 were removed from YouTube on Wednesday afternoon. The uploads included a one-minute video making reference to antidepressive medicines and their links with the American massacres at Columbine High School in 1999 and Virginia Tech last spring.
Shortly before the Virginia Tech killings, the gunman, 23-year-old Cho Seung-hui, mailed a package of texts, pictures and videos to the NBC television network, in which he blames the event on other students.
In the files placed on the Internet, there are pictures in which Auvinen poses with his Sig Sauer Mosquito pistol. His t-shirt bears the slogan "Humanity is overrated".
The lengthiest piece of writing was called "Manifesto of a Natural Selector", about 1,000 words long. Another text, describing the events that he was planning for the next day, had been revised last on Tuesday at 11:45 at night.
Auvinen also admired the perpetrators of the Columbine school massacre in Colorado, says classmate Miro Lukinmaa.
"I am the dictator and god of my own life", Auvinen wrote in his manifesto. "I am God", wrote 18-year-old Eric Harris, who joined his friend Dylan Klebold, age 17, in killing a total of 13 people in Columbine. On the day of the Columbine killings, which also ended in the suicides of the perpetrators, Harris wore a t-shirt reading "Natural Selection".
In an article in The Slate in 2004, psychologist, Dr. Robert Hare wrote that Columbine killer Harris had a messianic feeling of superiority. At least superficially, the Jokela shooter's texts appear to be similar.
Auvinen wrote that stupid and retarded people "should die", while Eric Harris emphasised that he "hated stupid people".
Both were interested in heavy music and violent cinema.
Both Auvinen and Harris expressed the hope that their family members would not be blamed for what transpires.
Auvinen also appears to have considered himself more evolved than other people, seeing himself a god, compared with "the masses". He declared that most people are "pitiful slaves", and that death and killing are natural.
Seeing himself as a dissident and an individual, he writes: "Although I chose my high school as the target, my motives for the attack are political and much deeper." He continues: "Most of you are too arrogant and closed-minded to understand."
In his Internet material, he says that he is interested in history and philosophy. He found extremist movements of both the far left and far right to be of special interest. He was reportedly quite successful scholastically.
One schoolmate speculates that Auvinen may have chosen November 7th as the date of the shootings, because it was the date of Russia's October Revolution.
Classmates described Auvinen as strange and a loner, although not completely isolated. He had also suffered from school bullying.
Auvinen had no criminal record. Shooting was his hobby, and police say that he had been given a gun permit a few weeks ago.
Auvinen lived in a detached house with his parents and one younger sibling. The parents are both part time musicians, and the mother has been involved in local politics.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 8.11.2007 - TODAY |
 Much advance information about massacre on Internet |
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