Friday’s shooting in the Bavarian city of Munich, in which 18-year-old David Ali Sonboly killed nine people, and himself, was the result of protracted planning, with German officials saying they believe he spent a solid year ahead of time planning the shooting.
Sonboly was described as mentally-disturbed and a victim of bullying, who told classmates in the past that one day he would “kill them all.” He was said to have been obsessed with mass shootings, and officials say it is probable he timed the attack for the five year anniversary of Anders Breivik’s massacre in Norway.
This is fueling a lot of debate among policy-makers, who usually focus heavily on surveilling those who were potentially radicalized, and are now trying to figure out what actions they can take to prevent incidents caused by the mentally ill. Needless to say, this is likely to involve the further demonisation of “loners” as threats, and add to the stigma of mental illness.
In the meantime, police arrested a 16-year-old friend of Sonboly as a “possible tacit accomplice,” which essentially just means he conceivably should’ve known an attack might happen, and is being punished for not both predicting the attack and informing police of it.