|
Gunman takes bloody 'revenge'
02/10/2006 21:25 - (SA)
|
|
|
 |
|
| Amish men gather near a police car in the tiny hamlet of Nickel Mines after a gunman killed four people - three of them girls shot execution style. (Eileen Blas, AP/USA TODAY)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
New York - A gunman opened fire at an Amish school in rural Pennsylvania on Monday, shooting and killing three girls and wounding seven others before killing himself, police said.
The shooting took place at a one-room schoolhouse in rural
Lancaster county, about 100km west of Philadelphia.
Three girls were confirmed dead and seven people were
injured, said state police. He shot the victims "execution
style" in the head, police said.
The gunman arrived at the school in the late morning and
took hostages, spokesperson Jeffrey Miller of the Pennsylvania state police told a news conference in Bart Township.
He began shooting an automatic handgun, and police then
charged the schoolhouse, Miller said.
The gunman had tied up the girls, while letting the boys
and some others leave, Miller added.
Let boys go
He said the three dead girls appeared to have been two
students and a teacher's aide - an older girl. The school
teaches students aged about six to 13.
"It's a horrendous crime scene," said Miller.
The gunman was identified as truck driver Charles Carl
Roberts, 32, a local resident.
Miller said the motive was still being determined, but
"apparently he did make a statement to his wife that he was
acting out of revenge... for something that occurred 20 years
ago".
The incident was the third school shooting in a week in the
US.
Teacher fled
A witness told the Lancaster New Era newspaper that the
gunman pulled up in a pickup truck outside the Georgetown
School and ran into the schoolroom where several children were
doing their lessons.
The teacher and some visitors fled and ran to a nearby farm
for help, while the gunman ordered all the boys out of the
school.
He then began to fire his gun, while state police troopers
shouted: "Roy! Put the gun down! Put the gun down, Roy!" the
witness told local reporters.
The troopers then fired at the gunman, the witness said.
The Pennsylvania shooting followed reports earlier on
Monday of lockdowns at two Las Vegas area schools as police
searched for an armed youth, local television reported.
Last Friday, a 15-year-old student killed his school's
principal in western Wisconsin.
On Wednesday last week, a drifter took six female high school students hostage in Colorado, molested them and then shot one to death and killed himself as police closed in.
- Reuters
|
