Pekka-Eric Auvinen

Pekka-Eric Auvinen
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REAL CRIMINAL

Name
Pekka-Eric Auvinen
Alias
Sturmgeist89
NaturalSelector89
Eric von Auffoin
Numerous online names
The YouTube Killer
Gender
Male
Birth Date
June 4, 1989
Place of Birth
Tuusula, Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
Date of Death
November 7, 2007 (aged 18)
Place of Death
Helsinki University Central Hospital, Töölö, Helsinki, Finland
Occupation
High School Student
Pathology
School Shooter
Mass Murderer
Pekka-Eric Auvinen
Arsonist (attempted)
Homegrown Terrorist[1]
Modus Operandi
Shooting
No. of Victims
8 killed
13 injured
Span of crimes
November 7, 2007
Status
Deceased
(suicide by gunshot)

“ ”
I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all whom I see unfit, disgraces of
human race and failures of natural selection.

— Auvinen in his manifesto

Pekka-Eric Auvinen, also known as The YouTube Killer, was a Finnish school
shooter and mass murderer who was responsible for the Jokela High School
massacre on November 7, 2007 in the village of Jokela in Tuusula, Finland.
Contents
 1Background
o 1.1Online Activity
 2Shooting
 3Aftermath
 4Modus Operandi
 5Known Victims
o 5.1Fatalities
o 5.2Survivors
 6On Criminal Minds
 7Sources
 8References

Background
Pekka-Eric Auvinen was born on June 4, 1989 to Ismo Auvinen and Mikaela Vuorio.
Prior to the massacre, Auvinen had no criminal record.

According to the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, Auvinen excelled

moderately in school and had plans to graduate in the following spring preceding to
the events of the shooting.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen
To some people, he was often regarded as a shy student who isolated himself from
others and was prone to blushing when he was embarrassed. However, at the same
time, it was believed that Auvinen was the target of frequent "long term" bullying.

Several students reported sudden changes in his behavior to a youth worker,

stating that he acted threateningly and sworn to them that they would die in a
"white revolution". According to one of his teachers, Auvinen was a militant radical
who had a peaked interest in both the "far left" and "far right" movements. As it
turned out, Auvinen was a Nazi enthusiast.

Between the month of December in 2006 to the month of January in 2007, both of
Auvinen's parents attempted to get him some help for his anxiety and depression
by referring him to a psychiatric outpatient clinic. The offer was refused due to
perceived mild symptoms and they were alternatively given antidepressants to give
to Auvinen before any attempts to hospitalize him.

Online Activity
Auvinen had numerous online aliases, including two YouTube accounts under the
handles of "Sturmgeist89" and "NaturalSelector89" where he would post videos of
various school shootings and other violent incidents such as the Columbine High
School Massacre, the bombing during the 2003 Iraq Invasion, the sarin attack on
the Tokyo Subway, and the Waco Siege. He was also an atheist who frequently
posted anti-theist videos, as well as a fan of Social Darwinism.
On October 8th, 2008, a video made by the YouTube channel "finnbluus" uploaded a
video titled "For Our Son". In the video, it shows a seemingly normal child, whom
one may assume was one of the victims, but on the thumbnail and the 1:40 mark, is
shown to be Auvinen, with the song "It's A Long Road" by Jerry Goldsmith playing
in the background. The description of the channel states, "I don't accept
school[ ]shootings. I don't promote violence. I have [the] right to do my grief in
peace. This video, For Our Son, is my way to process grief", and (roughly translated),
"In the evening where the weather is stormy, are seven bounty hunters. They know
where the outlaw is, of which tens of thousands have been promised. The birds of
prey, prey". The channel claims to be ran by his father, Ismo.
In the months before the massacre, American YouTuber Thomas James Kirk, who
went by the name of "TheAmazingAthiest", called the authorities in order to
investigate a series of channels with content regarding school shootings which also
included Auvinen's. However this drew the ire of the small yet vocal community of
online individuals who idolized mass murderers including a female YouTube user by
the name of "Robin McVeigh" (a nod to the Oklahoma City Bomber, Timothy
McVeigh), who would routinely slander and attack users who disagreed with
murder, threaten the lives of many YouTubers (including Kirk and a female friend
who'd warned him of the dangers) and claim that those users were
bullying/harassing Auvinen.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen
At the same time, Auvinen began making preparations for the shooting by writing a
manifesto in both Finnish and English and posting it online, acquired a permit to
carry a firearm, and purchased a gun and several rounds of ammunition. On
November 5th, Auvinen went into the woods and recorded himself shooting apples
as a form of "target practice" before posting the images/videos on the internet. On
the night prior to the events of the massacre, Auvinen created several text files,
including a farewell message to his parents.

Shooting
On November 7, Auvinen never showed up for his first class at school and took to
surfing on the Internet instead. At approximately 9:33 AM, Auvinen posted a video
onto YouTube which showed the Jokela High School across a pond before cutting
to a reddish image of him pointing his gun at the camera. After 11 AM, he edited the
video and sent a message to the school killings Net community; quoting that
"history would be made that day". By 11:28 AM, Auvinen shut down his computer
and proceeded to the school by bicycle. He arrived at the school at around 11:37 AM
and entered the basement through a door just below the school canteen.

At 11:42 AM, the massacre began when Auvinen shot an upper secondary school
student. Afterwards, he began to travel to the lavatories on the ground floor
corridor. Several students were confused about what was going on. Others tried to
call for help from the ERC. As this happened, Auvinen shot two other students. The
school's nurse, Sirkka Kaarakka, shouted at the students to leave the building
before making a call to the ERC when she realized that a student had been shot.
While Kaarakka made the phone call, Auvinen shot a fourth student before setting
his sights on her. After shooting her, Auvinen shot a fifth student.

At around 11:46 AM, six people had been killed within four minutes. A student
entered the deputy head teacher's office to warn her that there was a gunman at
the school. The deputy headteacher passed this message onto the head teacher,
Helena Kalmi. At 11:47 AM, Kalmi made an announcement on the PA system that
told the students to remain in the classrooms and not to leave.

After the announcement had been made, Auvinen fired several shots in the
corridors and shouted, "I'll kill all of you!" However, when he stumbled across the
path of a student's mother who just happened to have entered the building at the
time, he spared her. After this, though, he attempted to enter a classroom on the
ground-floor and shot through the door three times, injuring a student in the foot in
the process. Auvinen ascended two floors up to the second floor and came across
two students sitting on a bench within the corridor. One of them escaped, but the
other was fatally wounded by Auvinen. At some point, Auvinen sprayed a
flammable liquid on the corridor wall and attempted to ignite it with matches, but
ultimately failed.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen
After the attempted arson, Auvinen descended to the corridor in front of the school
canteen and attempted to enter, only to find that the doors had been closed and
locked. He demanded to be let in before shooting through the doors and hitting
several chairs. As this was happening, a group of people that were hiding in the
canteen managed to escape through the other end and hid in rooms behind the
canteen's kitchen.

At around 11:54 AM, Kalmi and an education welfare officer exited through the
ground-floor door of the old building and ran to the pond side of the school. Kalmi
stopped between the school building and the pond to make a phone call. The
education welfare officer left for a car next to the sports hall and proceeded to the
end of the car park to guide rescue vehicles to the scene of the massacre. Just as
he was doing so, Auvinen exited out of the exit below the canteen, cursing. This
caused the education welfare officer to flee to the field.

At 11:57 AM, Auvinen shot Kalmi several times in the head. Later on, he entered the
school again and ascended to the first floor. He attempted to enter the school
faculty room but to no avail. He then proceeded to a comprehensive-school
classroom and entered through an open door. While he was there, Auvinen pointed
his gun at the students, told them that there was a "revolution" going on and
instructed them to start breaking things. When the students either refused or were
confused about what was going on, he fired at a television set and the window
within the room and left without firing any shots at the students.

A few minutes past noon, Auvinen was roaming about through the corridor on the
first floor in front of the school faculty room. Meanwhile, the first set of policemen
and ambulances were on the scene near the inner court. When he saw this, Auvinen
tried to fire through the window at an oblique angle toward the direction of the
inner court, but the bullet couldn't penetrate the glass. When this happened, he
took up a position near the front entrance and fired two shots at the policemen who
attempted to approach him and gave him orders to drop the gun at around 12:04
PM. After this, he proceeded to walk toward a lavatory next to the canteen. While
inside the lavatory, Auvinen shot himself in the head, but survived. He was found
nearly two hours later in a search conducted by law enforcement and transferred
to the Helsinki University Central Hospital, where he died at 10:15 PM that evening.

Aftermath
Flags were flown at half-staff on November 8, throughout the country by officials
and private entities alike, and the Finnish government held a moment of silence
while in session. Numerous individuals within both the Finnish government and
many other governments outside of Finland ranging from Norway, Iceland, Ireland,
the EU, Sweden, and Estonia have condemned the massacre and expressed their
condolences for the families and friends of the victims.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen
Over the course of the investigation, Finnish police found a total of 75 casings and
327 unused rounds of ammunition at the scene. Auvinen's suicide note was also
discovered. A 2,000-page police report regarding the shooting was released in April
2008.

After the shooting, numerous copycat threats started arising in both Finland and
Sweden. The Kauhajoki School massacre, which transpired on September 23, 2008,
was carried out by a 22-year-old culinary arts student suspected to have known
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, but in the final investigation no proof of this was found.

Modus Operandi
Auvinen shot all of his victims with a .22 SIG Mosquito. He also sprayed the walls of
a corridor in the school with a flammable liquid and attempted to ignite it but failed.
Most of the victims were students, though three of the fatalities were faculty
members.