Gunshot wounds or moving furniture? Experts were investigating whether people in the school would recognize the shooting

Shooting took place at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague-Dejvice on Wednesday evening, fortunately only as part of a controlled professional experiment.

Within it, firearms experts investigated how the noise from firing from various weapons – with or without a silencer – spreads through the building. Its conclusions are intended to help legislators when deciding on legislative changes.

“We are members of a working group at the Ministry of the Interior, where we are always discussing, for example, the ban on suppressors for short firearms, for example on pistols. There were no facts, there were no values, everything was subject to emotions and impressions. So we decided that we would organize an expert experiment, from which numbers, facts, and graphs would emerge,” explained the purpose of the event, Zdeněk Charvát, chairman of the Association of Accredited Entities for the Training of State Reserves.

The association organized the experiment at the university, which according to its character very much corresponds to the conditions at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Charles University, where the shooting took place a year ago. “We used practically the same calibers and weapons that the killer used, we also use a silencer like him,” said Charvát.

They gradually shot, for example, from Glock pistols, long sniper rifles or shotguns. “And we chose the same location for the shooting, i.e. the top floor of the school, and the same distance from the staircase, in order to simulate those situations in a very similar way,” he added. Once the missiles flew in the classroom behind closed doors, in the second part of the experiment then in the corridor.

“We have information that during the shooting at the Faculty of Philosophy, people thought it was about moving furniture, so we added, for example, a bench falling to the ground, a file cabinet falling, or heavy things being moved. We are testing whether people can subjectively tell the difference between shooting and something else, ordinary,” described the president of the association.

Their actions were “listened” to both noise measuring devices and people – around 90 independent observers. The equipment and groups of volunteers were distributed in different parts of the university, some right next to the place where the shooting took place, other people stood on the nearest staircase, others were in the elevator or on the ground floor of the building.

“We each got our own station, where we should behave naturally, we can even talk,” describes the instructions she received, one of the participants, located a few tens of meters from the shooters. But as soon as she heard a “suspicious” noise, she should have written down her impressions and perceptions for later evaluation. But she didn’t know in advance when and what would be shot.

“Now we shot twenty items, each item had three shots. It was in a closed room that is on the same floor as you are now. We shot from all weapons, with or without a silencer, we shot subsonic (subsonic – editor’s note) even with conventional ammunition,” Charvát came to say after the first part of the experiment to a group of observers on the staircase, with whom the Novinek staff was also present.

However, the group did not make any noise at this stage, the light shots only reached them at the end, when the shotgun was used.

“I am very surprised. In the classroom, which is right next door, they only heard the last shot from the shotgun and the fall of the desk. Out here on the stairs, which are 50 meters from the classroom, they heard almost nothing,” Charvát shared the first impressions of the participants.

“I was on the third floor, below the room where the shooting took place. There were tremors heard in the first series, it was similar to when someone jumps on top of you, the windows and the ceiling also rattled. In the second series, I heard less of it, with an echo in the corridor,” said another of the participants at the final evaluation of the experiment. “I wonder if I recognized when it was a shot and when it wasn’t, maybe I wrote down something completely different,” he said.

“The difference between a school shooting with a silencer and without? Zero, you can’t tell,” added another observer. The majority then agreed that it is not at all easy to evaluate a specific noise as gunfire, it is often mistaken for other, common sounds, which can also blend in with the noise of normal traffic in the building.

In the next few days, the organizers of the experiment will evaluate all the written notes of the project participants and the outputs from the devices. They will compare the noise level during a normal day at school and when shooting is involved. The results will serve the legislators in negotiations on the possible limitation of weapon suppressors. Some families of the victims after the tragedy at FFUK in December 2023 would like to ban them.