Before Saari shot and killed ten people with a Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol, doused a classroom with petrol and set it on fire. At some point he also threw a Molotov cocktail into a language laboratory. Saari fired a total of nearly 200 shots. The highest number of shots inflicted to a single victim was twenty. Saari left behind two handwritten notes in his school dormitory stating that his motive for the shooting was "I hate the human race".