2023-10-16 11:16:13
He wanted to do “target practice” because he didn’t hit “as well as in the Prater” at the shooting range: With these words, a 24-year-old tried to explain to a jury at the regional court on Monday why he was in his position on June 12, 2023 Apartment in Vienna-Favoriten fiddling with his hunting rifle with the window open. He targeted several people; one woman ran into a panicked courtyard and hid behind garbage containers.
A man in an apartment across the street also saw the 24-year-old pointing his gun with a scope at him as he smoked at the window. “I quickly left the window and told my wife to get out of the room with our child,” he told the court as a witness. He took a photo of the man with his cell phone: “Then he aimed directly at me once more.”
After several people called the police, the 24-year-old’s apartment on Rotenhofgasse von der Wega was stormed, the previously innocent man was arrested and the weapon, which was loaded with live ammunition, was seized. The young man owned the rifle legally. However, it later emerged that the 24-year-old had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital twice in the recent past for four weeks each. “I know that I have an illness. A psychosis. I live with a psychosis,” he explained to the Senate himself.
Forensic psychiatrist Peter Hofmann classified the man, whom he certified as having untreated schizoaffective disorder, as dangerous. If – like recently – he does not take his medication and instead continues to consume alcohol and cannabis, crimes with serious consequences must be expected, the expert warned. The public prosecutor not only accused the 24-year-old of making dangerous threats – he also requested that the man be placed in a forensic therapeutic center.
“I only held the gun out of the window for ten seconds to compare targets,” the defendant claimed. Then he told me how some time ago he began to have fun at the shooting ranges in the Prater with air rifles and blank cartridges. He enjoyed it, he always “hit it well” and so “decided I’d buy myself a sharp weapon.” He then went into a shooting cellar with the rifle, but “didn’t shoot that well anymore.” That bothered him, so on June 12th he held the gun out the window and aimed it at a wall ledge or a surveillance camera.
The 24-year-old, who has been in custody or provisionally detained at the prison for several months, agreed to be treated with a depot injection. The hearing was postponed until mid-December – by then it should be clear whether the medication is working and whether the man’s placement in the prison system, which he requested in the event of a conviction, can only be granted to a limited extent.
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