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, of who on his several accounts, uploaded several videos concerning his views on politics, religion and several tragedies from recent history, including the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack and the 1999 Columbine massacre, all the while expressing support with those who carried out such acts.

On the 7th of November 2007, he committed the Jokela school shooting, of which claimed 8 lives and injured 13 others, with Pekka himself taking his own life afterwards. At the time, the shooting was the deadliest of its type in Finnish history, with the then Prime Minister calling the event a 'great tragedy', with many in the government and society at large expressing their sympathy to those affected.

This in part led to examination of the country's gun laws, all the while the story inspired the 2015 documentary Pekka: Inside The Mind of a School Shooter. Pekka in turn, is often cited as the first YouTube killer, although this is disputed. Despite that seeming significance however, his story was all but forgotten in popular culture until the year 2022, whereby several true crime YouTubers covered the matter, including but not limited to Coffeehouse Crime, Haunted Autopsy and Savox.

Because of the shooting, YouTube would delete his current channel, alongside all of its current videos. This in turn has left many of his videos, alongside the channels on which he posted them on (NaturalSelector89 and Strumgeist89) as lost media, albeit some of the former has been recovered over time.

Early Life

Pekka was born on the 4th of 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, with some friends and a particular interest in studying a humanities subject, including those of history and political science, when he went to university. His family later moved to Jokela, another Tuusula suburb, whereby people used it as a commuter area to get to Helsinki.

However, as he grew older and entered into Jokela High School, friends became fewer and he was often the target of much bullying, partially due to his short stature and fashion, mainly his leather jacket. The extent of this is unknown, albeit one anonymous student admitted 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'. This became such a problem that his parents often complained about his former school's alleged leniency regarding the matter, all the while they complained to other parents about the matter (of who in turn simply told their children to avoid him).

He also had problems with his mental health during this period. In response to this, he received treatment from Jokela High School's health service at the age of 16, whereby the doctor recommended exercising and the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant to treat Pekka's panic disorder in April 2006. Despite initial success, his dosage was increased due to a sense that its effectiveness was waning, no doubt in part due to his infrequent usage of the medication, of which can cause serious withdrawal symptoms. The issue became such a problem that his parents requested his referral to the Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic between December 2006 to January 2007, but was denied as his symptoms weren't considered serious enough and there were a lack of resources and long queues preventing such a matter. In November 2007, when he was given a fitness examination as part of Finland's mandatory conscription service, he was ranked with an E because of his mental health, meaning he would have been deferred for 3 years, despite not having mentioned his problems in that field during the exam.

It was also during this time that much 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/Strumgeist89

On the 15th of March 2007, Pekka created his first channel NaturalSelector89, a reference to his belief in social Darwinism and subsequently natural selection (perhaps not coincidentally, Columbine shooter Eric Harris 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 ones and some music that he produced, like 'Antisocial Aggression'. For religion in particular, he believed all of them were fake and made several videos on his channel attempting to disprove their existence. In one video in particular, he claimed that faith was false as it was 'not science', all the while he was a 'real god' as opposed to any others who were 'wrong and fictious', with Slayer's 'Antichrist' being played in the background:

He also expressed his extreme political beliefs in these videos on both channels, all the while 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 the likes of serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Kaczynski.

During the time that NaturalSelector89 was active, other YouTubers started to call Pekka out for his violent content and signs of a violent nature. Most notably, T.J. Kirk (better known by his YouTube alias The Amazing Atheist) made a video called 'Columbine Killers, Mental Midgets & Social Darwinism' where he noted that following the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, there was a need to be wary about such people on YouTube who 'exhibit' warning signs and of who admired the Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, all the while such people needed to be investigated, with Pekka's channel being highlighted:

His videos became more frequent and intense in nature once he created his second channel Strumgeist89 on the 19th of October of that same year (which is German for storm spirit), after his original channel was deleted for unspecified reasons that same day. Here, he made several videos exhibiting his handgun and using it to shoot fruit. He acquired his handgun in October 2007, after joining a local gun club in August, with him subsequently buying ammunition too. 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' - something apparently referencing his former German online girlfriend Tanascheel, blaming her for his oncoming actions. He also apologised to several people before the shooting, including the aforementioned 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, Pekka would skip his first lesson in order to play on the internet. Most significantly, at 9:33am, he uploaded his final video. The video, entitled 'Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007', would focus on picture of his school, of which then dissolves to several red images of Pekka pointing his gun at the camera, foreshadowing what he was going to do next, with KLM's 'Stray Bullet' as the background music:

Following that, he went to Jokela High School on his bicycle, arriving there at 11:37am and entered the basement, with lunchtime occurring at the time. The first student to be killed was 17-year-old student Sameli Nurmi, of who Pekka shot in the ground floor's corridor at 11:42am. Following that, he went into the toiletries. After some students noticed Sameli on the ground, they called the Emergency Response Centre, albeit thinking that he had bumped his head, not that he'd been shot. Pekka then shot two more students while this was taking place, 17-year-old Mika Petteri Pulkkinen and 18-year-old Ari Juhani Palsanen, of who were both students at the time. A fourth victim, 25-year-old student Hanna Katariina Laaksonen Kinnunen, was shot as the school nurse was calling the ERC after realising that a student had been shot.

The nurse, 43-year-old Sirkka Anneli Kaarakka, was Pekka's fifth victim after she tried to escape from him as he chased her down the corridor. He also killed his sixth victim, 17-year-old Mikko Tapani Hiltunen in the same spot. As this was happening, the headmaster had been notified about the gunman inside the school, leading him to announce over the PA system at 11:47am that all should stay in their classrooms and shouldn't leave under any circumstances. In response, Pekka fired 53 bullets all the while threatening to 'kill all of you'. Going up to the second floor of the school, he shot one of two students sitting on a bench (that being 16-year-old Ville Valtteri Heinonen), while sparing the other. Following this, he attempted to set alight a corridor wall with a flammable liquid and matches, albeit to no avail. After failing to enter the canteen (which had been locked before Pekka arrived), he killed his final victim at 11:57am, that being the 61-year-old headmistress Helena Kalmi, of who he shot after finding he on the outside of the school.

Afterwards, he returned inside and went to the first floor, where he failed to open locked staff doors and entered a classroom, urging his students to join him in his revolution (of which was intentional, as he had coincided his attack with the 70th anniversary of the Second Russian Revolution, of which saw the communist Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin come to power and establish the Soviet Union). When this failed, he shot a TV set and a window, and then moved on. A few minutes after noon, armed police had surrounded the building, ordering Pekka to stand down. Following some encounters with them exchanging gunfire, he entered a lavatory next to the canteen, where he shot himself, of which while not killing him immediately, did so a few hours later at a local hospital.

Following this, the police inspected the building, finding the victims and Pekka later on, finishing their first inspection at 2:29pm and left the scene at a few hours later, once the area was secure and all students were evacuated. Once the event was over, it was discovered that 8 people were dead, 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 aftereffects left a lot of grief and sadness in the local area, especially to those affected by it, with sympathy coming in not only from the Finnish government, but many world leaders also mainly from the neighbouring Scandinavian countries and the European Union, of which Finland is a member of. For his parents, they were shocked by the incident, especially his father who didn't realise Pekka owned a gun until a friend of Pekka's told him during the shooting. They would later upload a video in 2008 entitled 'For Our Son', as a tribute to Pekka. Others who had previously warned about Pekka were frustrated at the event, most notably the aforementioned Kirk, who uploaded this video in response:

In order to get the students' minds off the matter, the school took the children on many field trips in order to do so. Since the shooting, there has only been one memorial for the event in 2008, of which one chaplin of the Jokela area found odd, stating 'there's an iron rail in front of a church which is a reminder of a railway accident... in 1996', but nothing for the shooting, despite it being 'the scariest thing that ever happened here'.

Availability

Following the shooting, YouTube deleted Strumgiest89 and its videos. This, coupled with NaturalSelector89 being deleted also means that much of Pekka's video are no longer available. Despite this, some of them have been uploaded, most notably by the YouTuber Uhtceare, alongside some other ones on internet archive sites.

His manifesto and other documents meanwhile, 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://www.cnet.com/health/suicide-hotlines-crisis-hotlines-to-call-or-text-when-you-need-help/ and https://www.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.