The Sello mall shooting occurred on the morning of 31 December 2009 shortly after 10:08 local time at the
Prisma PRISMA may refer to:
* Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) is an evidence-based minimum set of items aimed at helping scientific authors to r ...
hypermarket
A hypermarket (sometimes called a hyperstore, supercentre or superstore) is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including ...
in
Sello mall, located in the
Leppävaara
Leppävaara ( sv, Alberga) is a district of Espoo, a city in Finland. The Rantarata rail line and the Ring Road I, the busiest road in Finland, cross in Leppävaara, thus making it a major traffic hub in the Greater Helsinki region. The Sello Sh ...
district of
Espoo
Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...
,
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
.
Ibrahim Shkupolli, who was born in Yugoslavia but had lived in Finland for many years, shot three men and one woman who all worked at Prisma. Before the shooting, he had killed his ex-girlfriend at her home. After the shooting, Shkupolli left the mall and killed himself in his own apartment.
The Sello mall, which opened in 2003, is the largest in the
Nordic region
The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Swed ...
with over 170 stores. On the day of the shooting the mall contained between two and three thousand customers. Witnesses described the gunman as calm when walking out of the grocery store in the mall immediately after the shooting.
Shooting
![Kauppakeskus Sello3 Espoo Finland](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Kauppakeskus_Sello3_Espoo_Finland.jpg)
The shooting began when the gunman entered the
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* Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) is an evidence-based minimum set of items aimed at helping scientific authors to r ...
hypermarket and began firing with a
9×19mm handgun
A handgun is a short- barrelled gun, typically a firearm, that is designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun (i.e. rifle, shotgun or machine gun, etc.), which needs to be held by both hands and also braced ...
. He killed three men and one woman. The victims, aged 27, 40, 42 and 45,
were employees of Prisma. Another woman, identified as the suspect's ex-girlfriend,
was found dead in an Espoo apartment. The ex-girlfriend was also an employee of Prisma, and the Finnish police speculated that she was the main target, and that Shkupolli thought that her new partner worked at Prisma.
The perpetrator, identified as 43-year-old
Kosovar Albanian
The Albanians of Kosovo ( sq, Shqiptarët e Kosovës, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar/Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars/Kosovans, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo.
Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-gr ...
Ibrahim Shkupolli, was seen walking into another shop where he disappeared, sparking a major manhunt which involved police helicopters.
Later that day, Shkupolli was found dead in an apartment in Kirstinmäki, Espoo, in an apparent suicide. His apartment was completely empty except for a mattress, a framed photo of his ex-girlfriend, 14 fully loaded magazines for his gun, and a bag containing additional 273 cartridges. According to a neighbour who heard the gunshot, Shkupolli had shot himself at 11:13. The Finnish police evacuated and cordoned off the shopping centre, and blocked off a nearby railway station. Emergency services arrived on the scene including dozens of ambulances and several fire engines.
The
firearm
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...
used was a
Czechoslovak
Czechoslovak may refer to:
*A demonym or adjective pertaining to Czechoslovakia (1918–93)
**First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–38)
**Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–39)
**Third Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60)
**Fourth Czechoslovak Repub ...
-made 9mm
CZ 75 pistol, manufactured in 1984 and was originally sold in
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
where the gun went missing due to an unsolved burglary case in 1990. The questions of how and when Shkupolli acquired it remain unknown. The first victim, the woman found in the apartment, was killed with a
Smith & Wesson-branded
hunting knife. The body had a long and deep incised
wound
A wound is a rapid onset of injury that involves laceration, lacerated or puncture wound, punctured skin (an ''open'' wound), or a bruise, contusion (a ''closed'' wound) from blunt force physical trauma, trauma or compression. In pathology, a '' ...
reaching the
cervical spine. The apartment had no signs of struggle.
Shooter
Ibrahim Shkupolli (1966 – 31 December 2009) was born in
Mitrovica,
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
, worked as a grocer, and had resided illegally in Finland since 1990.
He entered Finland through Norway in 1990. Shkupolli worked in a warehousing company that delivered to the
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supermarket chain.
Shkupolli had been married to a
Kosovar Albanian
The Albanians of Kosovo ( sq, Shqiptarët e Kosovës, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar/Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars/Kosovans, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo.
Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-gr ...
woman with whom he had three children but maintained an on-off relationship with his Finnish girlfriend both before and after the marriage.
[ In both of his former and present municipalities of residence, ]Mikkeli
Mikkeli (; sv, S:t Michel; la, Michaelia) is a town and municipality in Finland. It is located in what used to be the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the Etelä-Savo region. The municipality has a population of () (around 34,000 i ...
and Espoo, restraining orders had been imposed on him after his girlfriend filed charges about his behavior and numerous threats, including one to kill her. The order imposed by the court barred him from approaching both her and her job location. It is thought that he believed she had begun a relationship with one of the supermarket staff, and that this was the motive for his crimes. He had been convicted of assault in 2001[ and possession of a 7.65 mm hand gun and associated rounds of ammunition in 2003 and 9 x 18 mm cartridges in 2007 as well as possession of ]narcotics
The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "to make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates ...
. He was also under investigation for being involved in a human trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...
ring that organises illegal immigration from the Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
to Finland.
These and other offenses including unlawful threats and traffic violations had led the Finnish Immigration Service to reject his application for Finnish citizenship.
His motives may have been a mixture of a grudge with his former employer Prisma, and the fact that he believed that his girlfriend had started a new relationship with a Prisma employee after breaking up with Shkupolli.
See also
*Myyrmanni bombing
The Myyrmanni bombing took place on October 11, 2002, in Myyrmäki, Vantaa, Finland, in Greater Helsinki, at the Myyrmanni shopping mall. A bomb, hidden in a backpack, exploded in the central square of the shopping center on top of a metal waste ...
*Sanna Sillanpää
Sanna Riitta Liisa Sillanpää (born 15 April 1968) is a Finnish woman who shot three men to death with a rented 9mm Beretta 92FS semi-automatic pistol on 21 February 1999 in a shooting club in , Helsinki, and wounded another man, who received li ...
References
External links
{{commonscat-inline, Sello mall shooting
Massacres in Finland
Deaths by firearm in Finland
Leppävaara
Mass murder in 2009
Murder–suicides in Finland
Mass shootings in Finland
Spree shootings in Finland
Suicides by firearm in Finland
Attacks on shopping malls
December 2009 crimes
2009 murders in Finland
2009 mass shootings in Europe
December 2009 events in Europe