The profile of Juraj K., responsible for the double crime that took place outside an LGBT club in Bratislava, Slovakia. Slovak newspaper Denník N: “He couldn’t find friends and it was hard for him to bear it.”
Two days ago two people were killed and one wounded in a shooting outside a local LGBTQ in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The suspect is Juraj K., an extremist teenager, who injured a woman and killed two boys who were standing outside the Teplaren bar in the city center. Then the killer was found dead, probably suicidal, on a street in the capital. The boy was already known to law enforcement for posting anti-Semitic and homophobic posts on social media. Below is the translation of an article that appeared in the Slovakian newspaper Dennik N which reconstructs the incident and explains who the murderer was.
“Hey, see you on the other side,” wrote Juraj K., the attacker on Zámocká Street, just before midnight. In his manifesto of him, which he published a few hours before the murders, he wrote that he wanted to continue the attacks. “In case I survive the first day, I don’t want my other targets to know they’re on the list,” he explained.
Prime Minister Eduard Heger could also be a target of his, as Juraj K. took a photo in front of the apartment building where Heger lives a few weeks ago. The prime minister has already confirmed that the attacker’s published photo was taken right in front of his house.
At a press conference, the prime minister condemned the shooting and called for an end to hate gestures like this. Asked if he feared for his life, he said no.
“I’m not worried because I realize what a difficult time we are living in,” said Heger.
Juraj K. did not commit any more murders, police found him dead Thursday morning shortly before eight near the Ministry of Education building in Jasko rad.
According to Denník N, Juraj K. returned home to his parents after the attack, where he exchanged one weapon for another. There was a quarrel between Juraj K. and his parents, the killer even wrote a farewell letter. He then left the house with his father’s gun. His parents didn’t call the police.
The attacker probably wandered around Kramár and the nearby park all night. Shortly after midnight, he used Twitter, where he posted his poster of him, and on the 4chan website, where he posted photos of him from Bratislava at night. When users urged him to take a selfie with a shoe on his head if he had killed two men, Juraj K. did so immediately.
In the comments, he further wrote that he is not sorry for the murdered homosexuals, but he is sad for his family.
The posts on the 4chan page disappeared overnight, the Twitter account was also deactivated in the morning.
Juraj K. grew up with a nationalist world view. His father ran for parliament in 2020 for Harabin’s Vlasť party.
On his Facebook profile, Juraj K. Sr. criticized President Zuzana Čaputová and Heger’s government, expressed his pro-Russian views and recently called the new Foreign Minister, Rastislav Káčer, an “American puppet”.
He felt no remorse
Juraj K. was a gifted student, but with behavioral problems. The educators we spoke to confirmed that he could not find friends and it was difficult for him to bear it.
If he made friends with someone, he was so numb and annoying towards them that his friendships didn’t last long.
The teachers talked with Denník N anonymously, because this is an extremely sensitive case and they are sorry for this tragedy, a young schoolboy killed two people.
The teachers who met Juraj tried to solve his problematic behavior, advised his father to seek help from a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but he was not inclined to do so. He perceived it as a shame.
Juraj K. had no problems with learning. According to his teachers of him, he was very intelligent, they noticed it at an early age. He attended a private primary school on Bajkalská street in Bratislava.
“I am very sorry for what happened. I will not comment,” said school director Dana Jančinová.
However, he soon left this school to move to another one in Bratislava on Skalicka Street.
In his manifesto, which this young murderer posted on the Internet, he writes that he has changed schools due to psychological problems and quarrels with classmates. He claims that he moved because of bullying, but in connection with this he also writes that he behaved like a weakling because he couldn’t get over other people’s jokes.
It was very difficult for him to bear the fact that he could not get along with his classmates. He acted furiously and aggressively towards them. The teachers tried to help him. He also had such a bad relationship with a classmate that this boy moved to another school.
“His classmates avoided him, they didn’t want to talk to him, he couldn’t get along with them because he didn’t treat them properly,” said one of the elementary school teachers. “As if he had no inhibitions, he would say anything to his classmates. He was off balance. He could cry and suddenly get angry, furious,” adds another teacher.
Schools attended by the killer stated that the student did not express radical or hateful views in class.
“We didn’t notice any negative expressions of him, no influence on the other pupils, and he didn’t express his radical and hateful views in class,” the school said in a statement, adding that he seemed a quiet, easygoing type.
“It was his inner world that he showed on social networks and that we only learned about after the fact,” they added from the school. In the declaration they condemned the forms and manifestations of violence and hatred.
The school regretted the news of the tragedy and condemned the forms and expressions of violence and hatred contained in the manifesto. They want to focus on their pupils. There will be meetings with the students to help them cope with the tragedy.
Manifest
The day before the attack, on 11 October, Juraj K. tweeted in English: “I’ve made up my mind”. He posted another post on the morning of the attack around 10:00: “It will be done.”
The choice of the bar was clearly not accidental: in mid-August, the young man took a photo in front of the business and posted it on Twitter.
Juraj K. was active on Twitter several hours after the attack, he replied to people. When asked to confirm his identity, he replied that he didn’t care about fame, so he didn’t publicly write his name anywhere.
In his 65-page English poster, Juraj also wrote about his life, which he described with moments of joy and depression.
According to the manifesto, Juraj K. was a fan of Donald Trump and a supporter of far-right movements. He talked about his hatred of Islam.
In the manifesto he did not indicate links with Slovak extremism, he sought his “models” abroad. He referred to two killers: Brenton Tarrant, who attacked mosques in New Zealand, and John Earnest, who attacked a synagogue in the United States.
However, he also cited other killers motivated by far-right ideology. Both Tarrant and Earnest posted their posters on the 4chan forum, which is known for its large community of racists and anti-Semites.
As Juraj K. wrote, he found the courage to act after 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who killed ten people in the American city of Buffalo in May of this year.
“His live stream gave me a new inspiration, a new impetus to do what needs to be done after years of procrastination. And in Gendron I saw myself: a young man with all his life ahead of him, who decides to fight for something greater than himself, for which he believes “, he writes in the manifesto.
Juraj K. also wrote that he has people from the LGBTI community around him, and criticizes them for wanting to change gender at such a young age.
He posted photos and texts of extremists on his Twitter account a few weeks before the attack. For example, she posted a photo of the Auschwitz concentration camp with the text: “You know in your heart that they deserved it.”
He also wrote in his tweets that race always comes first, posted photos of people he perceived as his role models, for example, Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, or Adolf Eichmann, Organizer Nazi Holocaust and concentration camps.
He also posted a photo of him, in which he has three fingers extended like the letter W and his index finger bent into the letter P, which stands for White Power, a symbol used by white Californian racists.
