An 18-year old boy shot to death 8 and wounded 12 in a high school in Jokela, Finland this week. The police found the shooter on the school corridor after he had shot himself in the head with his handgun. He died later in a hospital. One of the killed students was a 25-year old single mother completing her second year of high school. She left behind two children, aged 3 and 5.

As nowadays tends to be the case, the news first spread across the Internet. Some of the immediate commentary took place over IRC, and there’s a thread on Jaiku that documents the unfolding of the events pretty much as they were happening.  One of the comments in the Jaiku thread is a quote from the IRC chat: "there’s a boy on the other [IRC] channel whose younger sister is still over there in the classroom."

Before taking action the shooter posted a total of 89 videos on YouTube, some of them featuring Nazi imagery. The videos have subsequently been taken offline.

Damn it. Someone should have seen what was coming.