2023 Prague shootings
school shooting in the Czech Republic
On 21 December 2023, a mass shooting occurred at Charles University's Faculty of Arts main building in central Prague, Czech Republic. A lone gunman, 24-year-old postgraduate student David Kozák, killed 13 people and injured 25 others before committing suicide after exchanging gunfire with police; an additional victim died indirectly from falling to her death while trying to escape the perpetrator.
At the time of the shooting, Kozák was one in a pool of about 4,000 suspects in a double murder that took place six days earlier, 25 kilometres (16 mi) away, when a man and his infant daughter were murdered in the Klánovice Forest. Evidence from the previous shootings linked the two incidents. Kozák's father was also found dead at his home in Hostouň, having been murdered hours before the Charles University shooting.
The Charles University shooting was the deadliest mass murder in the Czech Republic since its independence in 1993, surpassing the 2020 Bohumín arson attack.
Events
Klánovice Forest murders and initial investigation
On 15 December 2023, a 32-year-old father and his two-month-old daughter in a stroller were shot dead in the Klánovice Forest on the eastern outskirts of Prague, approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) away from Charles University. Later investigation revealed that the perpetrator, David Kozák, had only visited the Klánovice Forest once before committing the murders. On the day of the Charles University shooting, he had written a suicide note on his computer detailing the Klánovice murders; he had also hidden the murder weapon in the family garden. According to the letter, Kozák used public transport on the day of the murders and switched off his phone while changing transport on the other side of Prague.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q123952055. Authority coordinates are 50.089, 14.416. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1993 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “2023 Prague shootings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.