The 2023 Prague Shootings and Charles University Massacre

The Klánovice forest killings

On December 15, 2023, a 32-year-old man and his two-month-old daughter were shot dead in Klánovice Forest on Prague's eastern outskirts. The killings initially appeared unrelated to the events that would follow six days later.

After the university attack, police said ballistics linked a firearm associated with David Kozák to the forest murders. Investigators also found a letter at his home in Hostouň in which, according to police, he confessed to the Klánovice killings. The combination of ballistics and the recovered letter formed the documented basis for linking those deaths to the same perpetrator.

December 21: killing of his father and the search

On December 21, police were alerted to concerns involving Kozák and learned that his father had been killed at the family home in Hostouň. Officers began searching for Kozák, who was a student at Charles University's Faculty of Arts.

Police initially evacuated a university building where they believed he might attend a class. The subsequent attack occurred at the Faculty of Arts building on Jan Palach Square in central Prague.

The Charles University attack

Kozák opened fire inside the Faculty of Arts building. Thirteen victims died at the scene and a fourteenth later died in hospital. Another 25 people were wounded, some seriously. The attack became the deadliest mass shooting in modern Czech history.

As police converged on the building, Kozák died by suicide. Because the perpetrator was dead, there could be no criminal trial. Contemporary police statements said there was no evidence that the attack was connected to international terrorism or an extremist organization, and investigators did not establish a victim-specific motive that would justify presenting speculation as fact.

Investigation and final police determination

Czech police continued reconstructing the sequence of events after the shooting. By June 2024, investigators had concluded the criminal investigation, attributing the university killings, the killing of Kozák's father and the Klánovice double murder to the same perpetrator. The broader series therefore accounts for 17 homicide victims, while the university attack itself accounts for 14 deaths and 25 wounded people.

The absence of a trial does not make the perpetrator unidentified. The site's classification is based on the completed police investigation, ballistics, the recovered confession letter concerning Klánovice and the documented sequence of events. It is therefore marked Solved / investigative determination, not adjudicated.

Separate scrutiny of the police response

The conclusion about perpetrator identity is distinct from later scrutiny of how police handled the search and intervention. In 2024, the General Inspectorate of Security Forces said it had found no reasonable suspicion that responding police officers committed a crime, while also identifying areas where procedures, communication and equipment could improve.

In August 2025, the Czech Constitutional Court ruled that a father of one of the murdered students had a right to access the inspectorate file concerning possible police failings. The court explained that families' right to an effective investigation can extend to examining whether omissions or errors by authorities may have indirectly contributed to a death. That decision concerned transparency and institutional accountability; it did not reopen the finding that Kozák was the perpetrator of the shootings.

Timeline

Current classification

The connected December 2023 killings are classified Solved / investigative determination. Czech investigators identified one perpetrator across the university attack, the killing of his father and the Klánovice double murder. Criminal proceedings could not proceed to trial because the perpetrator died. Separate legal and institutional review of the police response continued after the homicide investigation closed.

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