Roundup: Czech police say investigation on Tuesday shooting attack may last months

Czech Zlin Regional police chief Jaromir Tkadlecek said on Wednesday that the investigation into the shooting attack would last several weeks up to months.

The police will release further information during the investigation in the following days.

On Tuesday, in Uhersky Brod, a small southeastern town in the Czech Republic close to the Slovak border, a 63-year-old local man shot at people in the Druzba restaurant and killed eight of them and shot himself dead before the police intervention.

The eight victims of the shooting attack are seven men aged from 27 to 66 and a 43-year-old waitress.

Another 37-year-old woman was seriously injured. She was woken from an induced coma on Wednesday and in a stable condition at present.

One man escaped uninjured as he hid in the toilet room. No foreigner is among the victims and wounded persons.

At about 12:38 on Tuesday noon, local police received the first call about a shooting at the Druzba restaurant, a man entered the Druzba restaurant and suddenly opened fire on the guests.

A two-police patrol arrived on the spot in 10 minutes, but had to take cover as the man started shooting at them. An injured woman managed to escape on this occasion. Tkadlecek said that it was lucky that none of the officers had been killed or injured.

Tkadlecek said many people lying and seating all over the restaurant at that time, the police could not know if they're alive, injured or dead.

Then a police negotiator talked with the attacker on the phone and was trying to found out what exactly happened.

"The situation seemed positive to us at the beginning. We thought that we could, for example, pull wounded. But the situation went badly for the police. We did not know whether people on the site are alive or dead, and therefore we decided to take repressive solutions," he said.

The police called in a rapid reaction squad for reinforcements from Brno, because Zlin region does not have its own intervention unit. The squad did not fire at the attacker because he shot himself once he saw that he was surrounded by armed policemen.

The attacker had no criminal record. He has been out of work for years and seemed to be under strong psychological pressure.

He legally owned two guns, a revolver Alfa and a pistol CZ 75B, both of them were found by the police in the restaurant. The two guns were both made in the Czech Republic, the semi-automatic pistol was produced by the Ceska zbrojovka arms maker seated in Uhersky Brod.

The attacker called Czech commercial TV station Prima that he "has a gun and hostages and will make his own decision." Police said that the attacker made the call after killing the people in the restaurant.

The attacker allegedly had problems with his neighbors. The police had to force entry to the man's house late Tuesday night as his wife refused to let them in.

A doctor entered the house together with the police and he decided to send the wife to hospital. The wife is allegedly suffering from schizophrenia. The investigators did not say whether the attacker had psychological problems.

Czech police has arranged three psychologists and seven other specialized police officers to help the survivors.

Czech President Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka both paid respect to the victims.

Uhersky Brod Mayor Patrik Kuncar said the shooting has been the biggest tragedy in the town's history. He said the town hall will declare a fund raising in support of the families of the victims.

Czech senators observed a minute of silence for the victims of "the mad shooter" at their plenary session on Wednesday morning.

In reaction to the Tuesday shooting attack in Uhersky Brod, the Czech Interior Ministry plans to enable doctors having direct access to the arms register to check whether their patients hold a firearm licence, Hana Mala from the Interior Ministry's press section said on Wednesday.

The ministry also plans to expand the police powers to immediately seize firearms and a licence from a person sent to an extraordinary medical checkup.

According to the Interior Ministry, the police registered 752,387 legally held arms in the 10.5 million population Czech Republic at the end of 2014, a total of 292,283 Czechs were gun licence holders. The biggest number of gun licence holders was registered in the Central Bohemia Region with 43,052 people. It was followed by Prague and South Moravia. The smallest number was recorded in the Karlovy Vary Region with 7,780 people. Endit