Pekka-Eric Auvinen (partially found videos of Finnish YouTuber; 2007)

This article has been tagged as NSFL due to its subject matter of a school shooting and suicide.

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An undated picture of Auvinen.

Status: Partially Found

Pekka-Eric Auvinen was a Finnish YouTuber who, using multiple accounts, uploaded several videos concerning his views on politics, religion and tragedies from recent history, including the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack and the 1999 Columbine massacre. In these videos, he expressed support for those who carried out such acts.

On the 7th of November 2007, he committed the Jokela school shooting, which claimed 9 lives, including that of Auvinen, and injured 13 others. At the time, the shooting was the deadliest of its type in Finnish history. Then-Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen called the event a 'great tragedy', and many in the government and society at large expressed their sympathy to those affected.

This in part led to examination of the country's gun laws, and the story inspired the 2015 documentary Pekka: Inside The Mind of a School Shooter. Auvinen, in turn, is often cited as the first YouTube killer, although this is disputed. However, his story faded into obscurity until the year 2022, when several true crime YouTubers covered the matter, including Coffeehouse Crime, Haunted Autopsy and Savox.

Because of the shooting, YouTube deleted his channel, alongside all of its videos. This has made many of his videos, alongside the channels on which he posted them on (NaturalSelector89 and Sturmgeist89) into lost media, though some of the former has been recovered over time.

Early Life

Auvinen was born on 4 June 1989 in the Tuusula suburb of Finland's capital Helsinki. With musician parents (Ismo Auvinen and Mikaela Vuorio), he was named by his father after the guitarists Pekka Jarvinen and Eric Clapton. Growing up, he was seen as a shy but hardworking student, having some friends as well as a particular interest in studying the humanities, particularly history and political science, when he went to university. His family later moved to Jokela, another suburb of Helsinki.

However, as he grew older and entered Jokela High School, friends became fewer and he was often the target of bullying, partially due to his short stature and fashion. The extent of the bullying is unknown, but one anonymous student said in the aforementioned documentary that many of the alleged bullies claimed afterwards that they had been his friends and that there was no bullying, despite having been, according to the source, 'absolutely horrible to him'. Auvinen's parents allegedly begged the school to reconsider its lenient stance on bullying, leading to further ostracization as parents told their children to avoid the bullied boy.

Auvinen also had problems with his mental health during that time. He received treatment from Jokela High School's health service when he was 16, and the doctor recommended exercising and a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) to treat Auvinen's panic disorder in April 2006. Despite initial success, his dosage was continually increased as it became less effective, no doubt in part due to his infrequent usage of the medication, which can cause serious withdrawal symptoms. Auvinen's parents requested his referral to the Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic between December 2006 and January 2007, but was denied as his symptoms were not considered serious enough, exacerbated by the lack of resources and high demand for the program. In November 2007, when he was given a fitness examination as part of Finland's mandatory conscription, he was ranked at an E because of his mental health, meaning he would have been deferred for 3 years, despite not having mentioned his problems during the exam.

It was also during this time that many of his extreme political opinions formed. Initially, he was a supporter of far-left politics, going as far as to share his support for the communist state of North Korea on an undisclosed website, claiming that reports about the country's human rights abuses and dictatorship were creations of 'western media'. Eventually, he became a supporter of far-right politics and neo-Nazism, so much so that before the shooting occurred, he threatened fellow students that they would die in a 'white revolution', and wrote online about his admiration for Adolf Hitler. His political extremism was so obvious to those around him that a former teacher of claimed that he was 'politically dedicated to an ideology at the age of fourteen.'

YouTube channels: NaturalSelector89/Sturmgeist89

On the 15th of March 2007, Auvinen created his first channel NaturalSelector89, a reference to his belief in social Darwinism. He may have been inspired by Columbine shooter Eric Harris, who wore a t-shirt bearing the slogan 'natural selection' when he carried out the massacre.

On this channel, he uploaded several videos concerning his views on history, politics, religion and major events. Other videos of his included gameplay videos and music that he produced, with titles such as 'Antisocial Aggression'. In his videos on religion, he stated his belief that all religions were false, and made several videos on his channel attempting to disprove their beliefs. In one video in particular, he claimed that faith was false as it was 'not science'. In the video he claimed to be a 'real god', while others were 'wrong and fictitious, playing Slayer's 'Antichrist' in the background:

He also expressed his extreme political beliefs on both channels, uploading videos of several violent events throughout recent history. These included the 1993 Waco siege, the 1995 Tokyo sarin subway attack, the 1999 Columbine massacre and the 2003 invasion of Iraq among others. More disturbingly, he would often praise those behind such acts in his videos as well. His videos also concerned serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Kaczynski.

During the time that NaturalSelector89 was active, other YouTubers started to call Auvinen out for his violent content. Most notably, T.J. Kirk (better known as The Amazing Atheist) made a video titled 'Columbine Killers, Mental Midgets & Social Darwinism' where he noted that after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, there was a need to be wary about people on YouTube who exhibit warning signs that they may commit a shooting as well as those who admire the Columbine shooters. He stated that such people needed to be investigated, highlighting Auvinen's channel as an example:

The already mentioned TJ Kirk responded to one of Auvinen's [video] with another video (https://archive.org/details/social-so-called-darwinism) in which Kirk heavily criticized Auvinen's ideology. Time later, Kirk made another video called "Natural selector is a subpar human", which is still lost. His videos became more frequent and intense in nature once he created his second channel Sturmgeist89 on 19 October of that same year, after his original channel was deleted for unspecified reasons that same day. Sturmgeist is German for "storm ghost", and maybe a reference to a Nazi antagonist of the video game Medal of Honor. On the channel, he posted several videos exhibiting his handgun and using it to shoot fruit. He acquired his handgun in October 2007, two months after joining a local gun club. The night before the massacre, he allegedly uploaded a video asking those who wanted to contact him to do so before it was 'too late'--apparently in reference to his former German online girlfriend Tanascheel--and blaming her for his oncoming actions. He also apologised to several people before the shooting, including Kirk and Tanascheel, with the latter's apology opining that he would be 'dead when [she] read' it.

November 7th, 2007: Jokela school shooting

On the morning of the 7th of November 2007, Auvinen skipped his first lesson in order to surf the internet. At 9:33 am, he uploaded his final video. The video, titled 'Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007', featured a picture of his school, which fades to several red images of Auvinen pointing his gun at the camera, foreshadowing what he was going to do next:

Following that, he went to Jokela High School on his bicycle, arriving at 11:37 am, at which time lunch was occurring, and entering the basement. The first student killed was 17-year-old Sameli Nurmi, who Auvinen shot in the ground floor's corridor at 11:42 am. Following that, he went into the restroom. After some students found Sameli on the ground, they called the Emergency Response Centre, thinking that he had bumped his head, not realizing that he'd been shot. Auvinen then shot two more students, 17-year-old Mika Petteri Pulkkinen and 18-year-old Ari Juhani Palsanen. A fourth victim, 25-year-old student Hanna Katariina Laaksonen Kinnunen, was shot as the school nurse called the ERC.

The nurse, 43-year-old Sirkka Anneli Kaarakka, was killed in the corridor as she tried to escape from Auvinen. He killed his sixth victim, 17-year-old Mikko Tapani Hiltunen in the same corridor. The headmaster announced over the PA system at 11:47 am that everyone should stay in their classrooms and should not leave under any circumstances. In response, Auvinen fired 53 bullets, threatening to 'kill all of you'. Moving on to the second floor of the school, he shot one of two students sitting on a bench (16-year-old Ville Valtteri Heinonen), while sparing the other. Following this, he attempted to set a corridor wall alight using a flammable liquid and matches, albeit to no avail. After failing to enter the canteen (which had been locked before Auvinen arrived), he killed his final victim at 11:57 am, the 61-year-old headmistress Helena Kalmi, whom he shot after finding her outside the school.

After this, he returned inside, where he failed to open locked staff doors on the first floor, then entered a classroom, urging his students to join him in his revolution. Fittingly, he chose the date of his attack to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Second Russian Revolution. When his appeal failed, he shot a TV set and a window, then moved on. A few minutes after noon, armed police surrounded the building, ordering Auvinen to stand down. Following an exchange of gunfire, Auvinen entered a lavatory next to the canteen, where he shot himself. He would die a few hours later at a local hospital.

Once the massacre was over, it was discovered that 8 people had been killed, and another 13 were injured. Those who died during the tragedy included:

• Sameli "Same" Nurmi, male, 17 (student)
• Mika Petteri Pulkkinen, male, 17 (student)
• Ari Juhani Palsanen, male, 18 (student)
• Hanna Katariina Laaksonen Kinnunen, female, 25 (student)
• Sirkka Anneli Kaarakka, female, 43 (nurse)
• Mikko Tapani “Mikkous” Hiltunen, male, 17 (student)
• Ville Valtteri “Viltsi” Heinonen, male, 16 (student)
• Helena Kalmi, female, 61 (head teacher/principal)

The massacre sent shockwaves of grief throughout the area and Finland in general. Messages of support and sympathy came not only from the Finnish government but many world leaders, particularly the other Scandinavian countries and the European Union. Auvinen's parents claimed they were shocked by the incident, and his father said he did not know Auvinen owned a gun until the shooting. They would upload a video in 2008 titled 'For Our Son', as a tribute to Auvinen. Others who had previously warned about Auvinen were frustrated at the event, notably the aforementioned Kirk, who uploaded this video in response:

Availability

Following the shooting, YouTube deleted Sturmgiest89 and its videos. As NaturalSelector89 was previously deleted, most of Auvinen's videos are no longer available. A few of them have been reuploaded, particularly by the YouTuber Uhtceare, and on the Internet Archive.

His manifesto and other documents are still available from archive websites.

If you or anyone you know are having suicidal thoughts or feelings, please follow these links to contact your local suicide prevention hotlines: https://ibpf.org/resource/list-of-international-suicide-hotlines/, https://cnet.com/health/suicide-hotlines-crisis-hotlines-to-call-or-text-when-you-need-help/ and https://itv.com/thismorning/articles/suicide-prevention-helplines.

Gallery

A reupload of Pekka's introduction video for his NaturalSelector89 channel, originally uploaded sometime in 2007.

True crime YouTuber Coffeehouse Crime's video on the case.

True crime YouTuber Haunted Autospy's video on the case, which discusses some of the aforementioned rumoured lost videos in greater length.