Police officer who let school shooter keep weapon faces criminal charges

Prosecutor launches investigation

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A police officer who handled the firearms permit application of Matti Saari, the gunman in last week’s shootings at a vocational school in Kauhajoki, faces a criminal investigation.
     Investigating the case is prosecutor Timo Luosma, who decided to start the investigation on Tuesday. In his view, there is reason to suspect that the police officer in question violated his official duties out of carelessness, when he decided not to take issue with Saarela’s firearm permit.
     The possible crime that the officer could be charged with is inadvertent violation of official duties.
     
The police officer has been questioned on the matter several times.
     A preliminary investigation by the prosecutor does not necessarily mean that the officer would automatically be indicted. Deputy Prosecutor General Jorma Kalske is to consider whether or not charges should be filed, but this will take several weeks.
     Luosma says that no further information can be made available, and that he has no possibilities to take a stand on information that has come out in the matter.
     The late edition tabloid Ilta-Sanomat wrote on Saturday that police already had orders on the Friday before the shootings to take the pistol away form Saari before the start of school the following week.
     However, Saari was not at home when the police came on Sunday, and the officer in charge of gun licences decided to question Saari about the matter on Monday. The interview took place, but the officer decided to let Saari keep the weapon.
     
Police have also questioned people who were in telephone contact with Saari while the shooting was taking place.
     “Nothing new came up during the questioning”, says Jari Neulaniemi, the head of the investigation.
     Neulaniemi does not want to disclose the details of the calls, or the exact time when they occurred, or who called whom. In any case, there was telephone traffic. None of those questioned are suspected of anything, which suggests that they did not have advance knowledge of the shooting.
     “The interrogations confirm things that we already know. The details will come out later in the protocol”, Neulaniemi says.
     “We have no information that they would have taken part in the planning.”
     
The forensic investigation at the scene of the shooting is continuing, and it is possible that more spent shells will be found. At this point, police estimate that the number of shots fired was about 200.
     Saari had many clips of ammunition, but Neulaniemi does not want to say how many. Each clip holds ten bullets, which means that Saari would have had to stop to reload several times.
     Police are now constructing a time line revealing the movements of the shooter in the building. Neulaniemi believes that it will be fairly comprehensive.
     “We will probably never know what happened every second, or every minute, on where he moved and what he did, but to a great degree, the sequence of events is clear.”
     
Police still do not know the identity of the person who shot the video footage of Saari at target practice.
     “It has not come out and it may never come out. The camera operator could be one of the victims, or then it just might not ever come out. From the point of view of the crime, it is of fairly little significance.”
     
Police have examined Auvinen’s telephone records over such a long period of time that they would have revealed possible contacts between him and the Jokela school shooter Pekka-Eric Auvinen, who committed a similar multiple killing and suicide nearly a year ago. Police are also investigating Saari’s computer but no interesting finds have been made.
     “At the moment there is no evidence that there would be anything like this.”
     The government’s ministerial group on internal security met on Tuesday and decided to call for a review of information on child and youth violence, and how it developed. The Supreme Police Command plans to ascertain if there has been an increase in the use of knives and making threats among young people.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police say Saari fired nearly 200 shots, spoke on phone during school shootings (30.9.2008)
  Prevention and investigation of multiple killings could be shifted to Security Police (29.9.2008)
  No indication that police action prompted Saari to move up Kauhajoki attack (29.9.2008)
  Calls for Interior Minister to resign; Katainen backs Holmlund (26.9.2008)
  Police actions to be examined in detail (24.9.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat