İsa Aras Mersinli was a taciturn eighth-grade student and, according to his teacher Ibrahim Hyula, practically isolated himself from other classmates. “This child didn’t have any friends. He allegedly sometimes had fun with three students, but generally didn’t hang out with anyone,” he said, according to the GZT website.
However, according to the teacher, there were other hints that the boy could commit a similar attack. On social networks, Mersinli allegedly called himself a “school hunter” several times.
He also added a photo of the British-American mass murderer Elliot Rodger to his WhatsApp profile. He murdered 6 people and injured another 14 in California in 2014, allegedly because of rejection from women.
Apparently, Mersinli looked up in it and, like Rodger, planned the entire attack in detail in a document that investigators found on his computer, the Hürriyet server revealed.
Turkish media also emphasize the attacker’s special relationship with his father, a former policeman. He and his mother were arrested shortly after the attack. “I don’t know how he was able to open safes with weapons and ammunition. I never showed him. He became interested in weapons only a month ago, he wanted me to take him to the shooting range,” the Miliyet website recalled his father’s words.
In connection with the attacks in the cities of Siverek, where the attacker Ömer Ket injured 16 people, and Kahramanmaraş, Turkey tightened security measures at schools in 81 provinces.
The prosecutor’s office blocked thousands of accounts on social networks and detained up to 162 people who approved the attacks or spread fear, panic and misleading information, for example about planned attacks on schools in other cities.
