Gunman kills six in Czech hospital waiting room before shooting himself

A 42-year-old gunman killed six people on Tuesday at a hospital waiting room in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava before fleeing and fatally shooting himself in the head, police said. It was the worst shooting in the Czech Republic, where gun crime is relatively rare, since a man shot eight people dead and then killed himself at a restaurant in Uhersky Brod in 2015.
It was unclear what motivated the shooting, which happened in the early morning at the outpatient clinic of the University Hospital in Ostrava, a city of 290,000 people 350 km (217 miles) east of the capital Prague and near the border with Poland.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis told reporters it was an “individual act”.
“He came home and announced he had shot people, and that he is going to shoot himself,” Babis told a televised news conference. He said the attacker’s mother was cooperating with police.
The shooter fled the hospital after the attack, prompting a manhunt involving hundreds of officers. He later shot himself in the head at his car with a police helicopter flying overhead.
He died about half an hour later after failed efforts to resuscitate him, Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said.
The shooter was identified as Ctirad Vitasek, a construction technician at the AZ-INTERGRIPS company based in Opava, just north-east of Ostrava, by the firm’s Chairman Ales Zygula.