Matti Juhani Saari Tribute

This is a tribute to Matti Juhani Saari.

Matti was only 22 when he decided to leave this world and take other people with him. He was the amok shooter of the Kauhajoki school massacre, having happend in Kauhajoki, Finland on 23rd of September 2008.

Durnig this deed 9 pupils and one teacher got shot before Matti set the gun to his own head. He died of his injuries a few hours later in the hospital.

Please note that I do not defend his deed or any other shootings or school massacres. I am here to share my memories and to take my right to mourn for the man I loved and to maybe thereby prevent that his death is being forgotten and that other young people become desperate enough to redo what he did.

Eric-Pekka Auvinen, the first Finnish school shooter, wrote in his farewell letter to his parents, that he hopes that he can change the world enough by his deed to prevent that it has to be repeated. One year later the world was still the same - and that's when the demons in Matti's head took over the lead.

Please let us remember the past to change and better the future - for that the death of Matti, Eric-Pekka and their victims were not for nothing.