Finland's Gun Culture Facing New Questions

Another clue came in the form of a suicide note that Auvinen left at home. Police said it included goodbyes to his family and antisocial commentary but would not reveal its contents otherwise.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Investigators said that he did not appear to single out his targets in advance and that they had no relation to one other. "It appears the victims were chosen at random," said chief inspector Tero Haapala.

But there were some patterns evident. Five victims were male students between 16 and 18 years old. Witnesses reported that Auvinen barged into some classrooms for younger children, shouting "Revolution! Smash everything!" but left without injuring anyone.

No girls were shot, police said, correcting earlier accounts that two victims were female students. The three females were all adults: the 61-year-old principal, the 42-year-old school nurse and a 25-year-old woman taking classes at the school.

Authorities said a student made the first emergency call to report the attack at 11:44 a.m. Patrol cars arrived 11 minutes later. Officers soon spotted Auvinen and urged him to surrender, but he responded with gunshots. Investigators said the last shots rang out at 12:04 p.m.

Police said they didn't return fire and remained outside the school for an unspecified amount of time because they were worried the shooter had taken hostages. They didn't find Auvinen on the bathroom floor until 1:53 p.m.

Crime scene photos showed the cafeteria's glass doors pierced by bullet holes, with half-eaten trays of pasta abandoned on tables inside. Technicians recovered 69 shell casings and found 320 rounds of unused ammunition in a bag.

At some point, detectives said, Auvinen poured 1.5 liters, or about three pints, of a flammable liquid on the floors and walls in one section of the building, but failed to ignite a blaze.

In the pitch-black of Thursday evening, hundreds of glass jars with flickering candles lit up the shoreline of the small lake outside the Jokela school. People laid bouquets of roses and scribbled poems on muddy ground in front of the building.

"It's unbelievable that something like this can happen here," said Jaana Kivistoe, a 40-year-old mother, her eyes wet with tears. "I don't see how a small town like this can ever really recover."

Students wondered how they would cope next week, when the school is expected to reopen. "It won't be easy to go back," said Noora Sanden, 14.

She and two friends from her eighth-grade Swedish-language class recalled how they thought Wednesday's chaos was part of an emergency drill. "We thought it was a joke until we made it outside," she said.

At the West Shooters Club, some members said they weren't completely surprised by Wednesday's massacre -- not because of Finland's large stock of weapons, but because of a perceived rise in antisocial behavior among teenagers, who spend hours alone in front of their computers and away from their families.

"There has always been talk in our society that this could happen, that someday there would be a school shooting," said Oinonen, 36. "Maybe this is not the last one. It might give other people some ideas."