{"id":535431,"date":"2026-04-17T05:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T05:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535431\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T05:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T05:35:11","slug":"school-shootings-a-new-trauma-for-turkey-as-nation-mourns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535431\/","title":{"rendered":"School shootings a new trauma for Turkey as nation mourns"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the victims of the attack were being lowered into their graves, more details were emerging about the killer. The authorities here say he referred on social media to an American gunman, Elliot Rodgers<\/a>, who killed six students in California in 2014. They also say an entry on his computer, dated 11 April, indicated there would be a major attack “in the near future”.<\/p>\n

He did not have to go far to get weapons \u2013 just to the bedroom of his father, a former police officer who is himself now under arrest. He has made a statement to the authorities, according to reports in the local media, painting a picture of a bright but troubled teenager who spent a lot of time playing war games on his computer and was attending a psychologist.<\/p>\n

While mass school shootings are a familiar horror for the US, this is a new trauma for Turkey. The authorities want to calm the public and control the narrative.<\/p>\n

Around 150 people have been detained for social media posts about the killings, accused of spreading misinformation, or “glorifying crime and criminals”. More than 1,000 social media accounts and Telegram groups have been blocked.<\/p>\n

There is no evidence of any link between the two attacks this week. And police say “initial findings indicate” that the killer in Kahramanmaras acted alone and was not linked to any terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n

At the school gates, now locked, and guarded by police, teachers laid flowers in memory of the children who were killed where they should have been safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the victims of the attack were being lowered into their graves, more details were emerging about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-535431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}