(OSLO, Norway) — A Norwegian who dressed as a police officer to gun down summer campers killed at least 80 people at an island retreat, horrified police said early Saturday. It took investigators several hours to begin the realize the full scope of Friday’s massacre, which followed an explosion in nearby Oslo that killed seven and that police say was set off by the same suspect.
The mass shootings are among the worst in history. With the blast outside the prime minister’s office, they formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.
Police initially said about 10 were killed at the forested camp on the island of Utoya, but some survivors said they thought the toll was much higher. Police director Oystein Maeland told reporters early Saturday they had discovered many more victims. “It’s taken time to search the area. What we know now is that we can say that there are at least 80 killed at Utoya,” Maeland said. “It goes without saying that this gives dimensions to this incident that are exceptional.” Maeland said the death toll could rise even more. He said others were severely injured, but police didn’t know how many were hurt.(See pictures of the bomb blast in Oslo.)
A suspect in the shootings and the Oslo explosion was arrested. Though police did not release his name, Norwegian national broadcaster NRK identified him as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik and said police searched his Oslo apartment overnight. NRK and other Norwegian media posted pictures of the blond, blue-eyed Norwegian.
National police chief Sveinung Sponheim told NRK that the suspected gunman’s Internet postings “suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but whether that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen.”
A police official said the suspect appears to have acted alone in both attacks, and that “it seems like that this is not linked to any international terrorist organizations at all.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that information had not been officially released by Norway’s police. “It seems it’s not Islamic-terror related,” the official said. “This seems like a madman’s work.”
The official said the attack “is probably more Norway’s Oklahoma City than it is Norway’s World Trade Center.” Domestic terrorists carried out the 1995 attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City, while foreign terrorists were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The official added, however, “it’s still just hours since the incident happened. And the investigation is going on with all available resources.”(See TIME’s 140 best Twitter feeds.)
The motive was unknown, but both attacks were in areas connected to the ruling Labor Party government. The youth camp, about 20 miles (35 kilometers) northwest of Oslo, is organized by the party’s youth wing, and the prime minister had been scheduled to speak there Saturday. A 15-year-old camper named Elise said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes. “I saw many dead people,” said Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn’t want her to disclose her last name. “He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water.”
Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. “I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock,” she said. She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop.
At a hotel in the village of Sundvollen, where survivors of the shooting were taken, 21-year-old Dana Berzingi wore pants stained with blood. He said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting. Several victims “had pretended as if they were dead to survive,” Berzingi said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said. “I lost several friends,” said Berzingi, who used the cell phone of one of those friends to call police.
Ritter reported from Stockholm. Associated Press reporters Bjoern H. Amland in Hoenefoss, Norway, Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Matthew Lee and Rita Foley in Washington, Paisley Dodds in London, and Paul Schemm in Tripoli, Libya, contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2084829,00.html#ixzz1T0ezwhzI
They were herded (more like ordered) like sheep, then shot. Only to be shot again in the next two hours. Haven’t they learned from Hitler’s final solution? Some people still believe in utopia like the way they believe in Santa Claus.
If the same thing happened here, ‘am at least some people will fight back, with licensed, or even unlicensed guns.
Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, was a survivor of the Luby’s Cafeteria Massacre in Texas in 1991. At that time, she was having lunch with her aged parents at Luby’s Cafeteria when a deranged gunman came crashing in with his truck and started shooting everyone in sight. Her father tried to rush the gunman but was fatally shot in the process. Her mother along with other victims chose to stay with her dying husband rather than take the risk of running out the back. She was shot in the head at close range.
As she later recounted, Dr. Hupp cursed herself for making “the stupidest decision of her life” by leaving her carry handgun in her car because at that time, Texas laws prohibited citizens from carrying their concealed pistols in public restaurants. She was however able to jump out the back window and survived the incident.
Years later, Dr. Hupp ran and won as a Representative for the state of Texas. An outspoken and bitter advocate of right to carry, she fought for an won the right of Texans to carry concealed pistols for self-defense. She based her advocacy on her personal experience.
Today, Dr. Hupp is an independent advocate for the right to concealed carry. She is not a member of the NRA, and she is no one’s mouthpiece and she does not represent any vested interest. Rather, her advocacy is borne out of a sincere desire to help people stay safe. She has been there and she knows how it is to be a victim of violent crime and lose loved ones. Today, she openly and unabashedly carries a snub-nosed .38. Perhaps she will never need it again. But if she does, she will be much better off than she was before.
I know of several incidents where further violence was fursutrated with the help of a concealed firearms, but those who were involved are too shy to make their experiences public lest the irresponsible media sensationalize it and even face legal harassment from illogical people. What is important is that lives are saved.
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