From SkyGermany School Shooting: Gunman Dead
Breaking News4:09pm UK, Wednesday March 11, 2009
A teenage gunman has killed 16 people in a shooting spree that began at a school in southern Germany.
Police and emergency service workers at the school crime scene
The shooter, named by German media as Tim Kretschmer, killed nine students and three teachers at the school in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, police said.
He killed another person at a nearby clinic before before fleeing with a hostage in a car.
Kretschmer was killed in a shoot-out with police at a car dealership roughly about 20 miles from the school.
Two passers-by also died in the shoot-out and two officers were seriously injured.
And now a girl seriously injured in the shooting at the school has died of her wounds in hospital, bringing the total death toll to 17, including the gunman.
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Witnesses saw a man dressed in black army fatigues spraying bullets around him at random in the Albertville technical high school.
Students jumped from the windows of the building as the 17-year-old former pupil at the school opened fire.
"He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath," regional police chief Erwin Hetger said.
"I've never seen anything like this in my life."
The editor of local newspaper Winnenden Zeitung said the gunman left the school two years ago with a degree.
Speaking to Sky News, Frank Nipkau described how the teenager, dressed in black army fatigues, entered the school around 9.30am and approached two classrooms.
"He was shooting at the students in two classrooms."
Police officers at Albertville school in Winnenden
Mr Nipkau said the man then fled into the city centre before police arrived at the school.
Stuttgart Radio's Philipp Grohm told the news channel the shooter had used a machine gun.
"We have to assume a death toll in the double-digits," the interior ministry in the state of Baden Wuerttemberg said.
Hundreds of officers scoured the city for the killer, using helicopters and search dogs.
""For two hours the city centre was completely under curfew," Mr Nipkau told Sky News, "Hundreds of police were searching for him."
He added: "This is an idyllic town with no big problems and nobody understands why this has happened. We don't know why he did this."
About 1,000 children attend the school in a suburb 12 miles outside Stuttgart.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the entire country was grieving for the victims of the attack.
"Like all people in Germany, I find what happened today in the Albertville-Realschule in Winnenden incomprehensible," Mrs Merkel said in a short statement.
"It is a day of mourning for the whole of Germany. Our thoughts go out to the families and relatives. We are thinking of you and we are praying for you."
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Goddamnit. What's with all the shootings this month?
