Scrapbook of
School
Shootings
Time Line of Worldwide School Shootings
The following table lists the worldwide school shootings from 1996 to the present. Find the date,
location, and a short description of each incident.
Feb. 2, 1996
Moses Lake,
Wash.
Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old
Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.
March 13, 1996
Dunblane,
Scotland
16 children and one teacher killed at Dunblane Primary School by Thomas
Hamilton, who then killed himself. 10 others wounded in attack.
Feb. 19, 1997
Bethel, Alaska
Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.
March 1997
Sanaa, Yemen
Eight people (six students and two others) at two schools killed by
Mohammad Ahman al-Naziri.
Oct. 1, 1997
Pearl, Miss.
Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was
also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be
outcasts who worshiped Satan.
Dec. 1, 1997
West Paducah,
Ky.
Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they
participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.
Dec. 15, 1997
Stamps, Ark.
Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he
shot the students as they stood in the parking lot.
March 24, 1998
Jonesboro, Ark.
Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as
Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson,
13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the
woods.
April 24, 1998
One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at
Edinboro, Pa.
James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.
May 19, 1998
Fayetteville,
Tenn.
One student killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School three
days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of
his killer, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis.
Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High
May 21, 1998
School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a
Springfield, Ore. day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at
home.
June 15, 1998
Richmond, Va.
One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in
the school hallway.
April 20, 1999
Littleton, Colo.
14 students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at
Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. Eric
Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500
and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned
their guns on themselves.
April 28, 1999
Taber, Alberta,
Canada
One student killed, one wounded at W. R. Myers High School in first fatal
high school shooting in Canada in 20 years. The suspect, a 14-year-old boy,
had dropped out of school after he was severely ostracized by his
classmates.
May 20, 1999
Conyers, Ga.
Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who
was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend.
Nov. 19, 1999
Deming, N.M.
Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shot and killed Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of
Deming Middle School.
Dec. 6, 1999
Fort Gibson,
Okla.
Four students wounded as Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm
semiautomatic handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School.
Dec. 7, 1999
Veghel,
Netherlands
One teacher and three students wounded by a 17-year-old student.
Feb. 29, 2000
Six-year-old Kayla Rolland shot dead at Buell Elementary School near Flint,
Mount Morris
Mich. The assailant was identified as a six-year-old boy with a .32-caliber
Township, Mich. handgun.
March 2000
Branneburg,
One teacher killed by a 15-year-old student, who then shot himself. The
shooter has been in a coma ever since.
Germany
March 10, 2000
Savannah, Ga.
Two students killed by Darrell Ingram, 19, while leaving a dance sponsored
by Beach High School.
May 26, 2000
Lake Worth, Fla.
One teacher, Barry Grunow, shot and killed at Lake Worth Middle School by
Nate Brazill, 13, with .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol on the last day of
classes.
Sept. 26, 2000
New Orleans,
La.
Two students wounded with the same gun during a fight at Woodson Middle
School.
Jan. 17, 2001
Baltimore, Md.
One student shot and killed in front of Lake Clifton Eastern High School.
Jan. 18, 2001
Jan, Sweden
One student killed by two boys, ages 17 and 19.
March 5, 2001
Santee, Calif.
Two killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a
bathroom at Santana High School.
March 7, 2001
Williamsport,
Pa.
Elizabeth Catherine Bush, 14, wounded student Kimberly Marchese in the
cafeteria of Bishop Neumann High School; she was depressed and
frequently teased.
March 22, 2001
Granite Hills,
Calif.
One teacher and three students wounded by Jason Hoffman, 18, at Granite
Hills High School. A policeman shot and wounded Hoffman.
March 30, 2001
Gary, Ind.
One student killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a 17-year-old student who had
been expelled from Lew Wallace High School.
Nov. 12, 2001
Caro, Mich.
Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center
before killing himself.
Jan. 15, 2002
New York, N.Y.
A teenager wounded two students at Martin Luther King Jr. High School.
Feb. 19, 2002
Freising,
Germany
Two killed in Eching by a man at the factory from which he had been fired;
he then traveled to Freising and killed the headmaster of the technical
school from which he had been expelled. He also wounded another teacher
before killing himself.
April 26, 2002
13 teachers, two students, and one policeman killed, ten wounded by
Erfurt, Germany
Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, at the Johann Gutenberg secondary school.
Steinhaeuser then killed himself.
April 29, 2002
Vlasenica,
BosniaHerzegovina
One teacher killed, one wounded by Dragoslav Petkovic, 17, who then killed
himself.
October 28,
2002
Tucson, Ariz.
Robert S. Flores Jr., 41, a student at the nursing school at the University of
Arizona, shot and killed three female professors and then himself.
April 14, 2003
New Orleans,
La.
One 15-year-old killed, and three students wounded at John McDonogh
High School by gunfire from four teenagers (none were students at the
school). The motive was gang-related.
April 24, 2003
Red Lion, Pa.
James Sheets, 14, killed principal Eugene Segro of Red Lion Area Junior
High School before killing himself.
Sept. 24, 2003
Cold Spring,
Minn.
Two students are killed at Rocori High School by John Jason McLaughlin,
15.
Sept. 28, 2004
Carmen de
Patagones,
Argentina
Three students killed and 6 wounded by a 15-year-old Argentininan student
in a town 620 miles south of Buenos Aires.
March 21, 2005
Red Lake, Minn.
Jeff Weise, 16, killed grandfather and companion, then arrived at school
where he killed a teacher, a security guard, 5 students, and finally himself,
leaving a total of 10 dead.
Nov. 8, 2005
Jacksboro, Tenn.
One 15-year-old shot and killed an assistant principal at Campbell County
High School and seriously wounded two other administrators.
Aug. 24, 2006
Essex, Vt.
Christopher Williams, 27, looking for his ex-girlfriend at Essex Elementary
School, shot two teachers, killing one and wounding another. Before going
to the school, he had killed the ex-girlfriend's mother.
Kimveer Gill, 25, opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon at Dawson
Sept. 13, 2006
College. Anastasia De Sousa, 18, died and more than a dozen students and
Montreal, Canada
faculty were wounded before Gill killed himself.
Sept. 27, 2006
Bailey, Colo.
Adult male held six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School and
then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself.
Sept. 29, 2006
Cazenovia, Wis.
A 15-year-old student shot and killed Weston School principal John Klang.
Oct. 3, 2006
Nickel Mines, Pa.
32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel
Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13
years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.
Jan. 3, 2007
Tacoma, Wash.
Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot fellow student Samnang Kok, 17, in the
hallway of Henry Foss High School.
April 16, 2007
Blacksburg, Va.
A 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm,
then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building. His suicide
brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly
in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.
Sept. 21, 2007
Dover, Del.
A Delaware State Univesity Freshman, Loyer D. Brandon, shot and
wounded two other Freshman students on the University campus. Brandon
is being charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless engagement, as
well as a gun charge.
Oct. 10, 2007
Cleveland, Ohio
A 14-year-old student at a Cleveland high school, Asa H. Coon, shot and
injured two students and two teachers before he shot and killed himself. The
victims' injuries were not life-threatening.
Nov. 7, 2007
Tuusula, Finland
An 18-year-old student in southern Finland shot and killed five boys, two
girls, and the female principal at Jokela High School. At least 10 others were
injured. The gunman shot himself and died from his wounds in the hospital.
Feb. 8, 2008
Baton Rouge,
Louisiana
A nursing student shot and killed two women and then herself in a
classroom at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge.
Feb. 11, 2008
Memphis,
Tennessee
A 17-year-old student at Mitchell High School shot and wounded a
classmate in gym class.
Feb. 12, 2008
Oxnard,
California
A 14-year-old boy shot a student at E.O. Green Junior High School causing
the 15-year-old victim to be brain dead.
Feb. 14, 2008
DeKalb, Illinois
Gunman killed five students and then himself, and wounded 17 more when
he opened fire on a classroom at Northern Illinois University. The gunman,
Stephen P. Kazmierczak, was identified as a former graduate student at the
university in 2007.
Sept. 23, 2008
Kauhajoki,
Finland
A 20-year-old male student shot and killed at least nine students and
himself at a vocational college in Kauhajok, 330km (205 miles) north of the
capital, Helsinki.
Nov. 12, 2008
Fort Lauderdale,
Florida
A 15-year-old female student was shot and killed by a classmate at at
Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale.
March 11, 2009
Winnenden,
Germany
Fifteen people were shot and killed at Albertville Technical High School in
southwestern Germany by a 17-year-old boy who attended the same
school.
By: Info Please
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html
Canada
High school shooting leaves Taber in shock
Broadcast Date: April 28, 1999
Until today, Taber, Alta. was a small farming community known mostly for its corn. It is now a
synonym for tragedy. Just after lunchtime on April 28, 1999, a former student walks into W.R.
Myers High School with a sawed-off rifle and shoots two students, killing one and leaving another
in critical condition. The attack is all too similar to the previous week's massacre in Littleton,
Colo., as we hear in this report from CBC-TV's Kelly Crowe - who only just finished reporting
from Littleton's Columbine High School.
Quiet tears mark Taber anniversary
By Bill Graveland, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TABER, Alta. - Dale
Lang is a tired man.
Ten years after his son
Jason, a popular 17year-old student at W.R.
Myers High School, was
gunned down by an
angry former classmate,
Lang is looking for a bit
of peace.
It's not that he's
shunning the spotlight
that has shone on his
family since the tragedy.
In fact, for almost a
decade he has been a
tireless crusader against
the sort of bullying and
school violence that led
to his son's death.
Rev. Dale Lang delivers his sermon in front of a
picture of his slain son Jason during a memorial
service at W.R. Myers High School in Taber, Alta.,
Monday May 3, 1999. THE CANADIAN
PRESS/POOL/Dave Lazarowych-POOL
It's just that reliving that day again and again has been hard.
"It's been difficult because I've had to talk about it 1,500 times, so ... it's hard
to keep a talk fresh when you do that," sighs Lang, 58, sinking into an
oversized sofa at his family home.
"There's a lot of memories and emotions attached when you do that, too, so
it's been quite a different journey."
Taber and W. R. Myers became inextricably linked to
school violence on April 28, 1999.
A 14-year-old youth, the victim of bullying by former classmates, entered the
building and pulled out a sawed-off .22-calibre rifle.
He fired four rounds.
Jason Lang was killed.
Shane Christmas, also 17 at the time, was seriously wounded.
The shooter, who can't be named by law, was arrested by an unarmed school
resource officer.
The event devastated residents of Taber, an agricultural community of about
8,000 in the heart of Alberta's Bible Belt which had been best known for
sweet, juicy corn sold across the Prairies.
It was just eight days after the massacre at Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colo.
The media attention was international and intense.
"It's one of those events where you hear of those sorts of things happening
elsewhere," remembers Taber Mayor Ray Bryant, who was an elementary
school principal at the time.
"You hope it never happens in your community, but it did."
In the months that followed, the young gunman was convicted of first-degree
murder and two counts of attempted murder. He is now serving his sentence
at a halfway house in Ontario where he has lived since 2005.
A scholarship fund was created in Jason Lang's honour and a Safe and
Caring Schools program was put in place in Alberta schools. It focuses on
eliminating bullying and promotes good social behaviour. Staff also received
threat assessment training and all schools developed safety plans.
"Often in society the positive elements come out in the face of adversity,"
explains Cheryl Gilmore, superintendent of Horizon School Division, who was
on staff at the high school 10 years ago.
"Whenever you have tragedy you have reflection because inherently people
want to have wonderful places for children to be and want children to be safe."
Insp. Graham Abela, the lead investigator for the Taber Police Service on the
shooting, has shared his experiences across the country with other police
forces and school boards.
He says Taber police learned the importance of being prepared for large-scale
emergencies. The size of the force has doubled since the shooting and the
town seems to take the issue of policing a lot more seriously.
"I don't think there's a need to relive the gory details or speak about the crisis
and the day in question," says Abela. "It's really important that they learn from
the lessons that we learned the hard way here in Taber."
There's little sign of the tragedy in the school's halls today - other than a
plaque featuring a smiling photo of Jason Lang and a copy of the eulogy
delivered by his father at a memorial at the school on May 3, 1999.
"One boy was seriously hurt and one boy died," reads the plaque. "And that's
not your will, God. Evil entered here and it must be gotten rid of."
The anniversary will come and go with nothing official planned to mark the
date.
"The kids here were between five and seven when it happened and it wouldn't
be fair to bring it up now," says one teacher.
Nor will there be a memorial service commemorating the event in town. Bryant
says there were memorials for three years after the shooting and attendance
waned.
"I think that was the signal from the community that three years have gone by
and it's time to move on."
At the Lang house, Jason's presence is everywhere.
A picture of the family, taken on Boxing Day 1998, is prominent on a table the last family photo before the tragedy.
A number of pictures, including Jason in his final high school photo, are
hidden among the knick-knacks on the piano. A huge portrait, a gift from the
funeral home after a public memorial, sits in a corner - too big for any wall in
the house.
Lang has taken a leave from the church and now runs a business which
includes making sushi for major grocery stores.
The anniversary never goes unmarked in the Lang household.
"The day he died was my oldest son's birthday, so we remember Jason and
then we have a birthday party kind of thing.
"We usually go out to the cemetery for a little while and go to dinner."
cnews.canoe.ca/.../2009/04/26/9252741-cp.html
Students run for cover as a
plainclothes police officer, centre, watches on. (Peter McCabe/Canadian Press)
IN DEPTH
Dawson College
Shootings in a Montreal college
Last Updated September 15, 2006
CBC News
On the afternoon of Sept. 13, 2006, Kimveer Gill entered Dawson College in
downtown Montreal with three guns and began shooting people.
Within minutes, an 18-year-old business student named Anastasia De Sousa
was killed, 19 people were wounded and Gill had ended his own life.
On a personal web page updated just hours before he started his rampage,
Gill called himself "Trench" and wrote: "You will come to know him as the
Angel of Death."
Eyewitnesses said they had seen a tall, goth-looking man in a long black
coat drive up near the college on Maisonneuve Street in a black Pontiac
Sunfire at about 12:30 p.m., get out of his car, open the trunk and remove a
rifle.
The gunman then walked toward the college's southwest entrance.
Witnesses said he shot at least one person outside before entering the
building. Police said the first gunshots were heard at 12:41 p.m.
It was lunchtime and the school was packed when the gunman entered
through the main doors and headed to the cafeteria. "He was shooting
randomly," said Dawson student Michel Boyer, who witnessed the gunfire.
"I'm not sure who he was shooting at, but the [cafeteria] atrium was
completely cleared."
The College is a CEGEP that serves about 10,000 students.
Gill published a web page that contained journal items posted from the same
day of the shooting and pictures of himself brandishing guns and knives.
"Work sucks ... School sucks ... Life sucks ... What else can I say?" he wrote
in the online journal that he started in 2005.
Gill took on the alias fatality666. On his web page, he posted pictures of
himself with combat boots, a knife and several of his rifles. A photo gallery
accompanying the profile includes pictures of Gill with a Beretta CX4 Storm
semi-automatic rifle. Some pictures show him wearing a black coat and
holding a rifle. The caption below the bottom photo reads: "Ready for
Action."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/dawson-college/
USA
Graduation Day In Moses Lake
A Mother Befriends Her Late Son's Friend
Natalie Hintz, left, and her twin sister Brianna have struggled over the past four years. (CBS)
(CBS) Recently, identical twins Natalie and Breanna Hintz graduated from Moses Lake High School in
Washingon. It was an especially emotional day for the pair, and for others. Susan Spencer reports on a
community that has tried to heal for four years.
For Natalie and Breanna and many in Moses Lake's class of 2000, graduation meant the end of a chapter
many hope to put behind them. On Feb. 2, 1996, at Frontier Middle School, a feeder school for the high
school, classmate Barry Loukaitis walked into his algebra class with three guns and opened fire. He killed
three people and critically wounded Natalie.
"I was shot in the back, 170-grain bullet, 30/30 rifle, from 12 feet away," she remembers. "[It] blew
my liver, my diaphram, my arm off."
THE EBOOK OFFER:
Loukaitis got prison for life. The violence would be only the first to rip
through the innocence of the class of 2000. There was Paduchah, and
Jonesboro, and Springfield, and Columbine.
Whenever another school shooting happened, Natalie says, she knew
Find out more: CBS News'
and Simon and
Schuster'sspecial eBook
offer.
what students there were going through. "My first reaction was the
deepest kind of pain," she says. "You understand so fully what they're going through."
"You know the road ahead of them," Breanna says. "You know what they're going to go through
next."
Natalie nearly lost an arm, and had to undergo a slew of surgeries and a lot of hard work. She's made
progress, as well as adjustments. She has, for example learned to type one-handed - at 40 words per
minute.
Although she didn't witness the shooting, Brianna has also lived with its effects, particularly because she
is a twin.
"It's hard to explain but our souls I guess in a way are attached," Brianna says of her sister. "When
she feels pain in her heart, I feel pain in my heart. Physically, when she was in the hospital, she
was under so much pain that I took over her pain."
"It's a twin thing," says Shannon Hintz, their mother. "It's a twin bond that we can't understand."
That bond has made the healing easier, says Shannon Hintz.
Both twins agree that the shooting forced them to grow up faster. Natalie says that if she hadn't been
shot, she wouldn't be involved i Students Against Violence Everywhere, a group devoted to helping
kids solve problems peacefully.
The Hintzs weren't the only ones affected by the shooting. Among those still trying to deal with the
violence is their friend Alice Fritz. Her son Arnie, who would have graduated this month, was a bright 14year-old in 1996. He was an avid reader, and was interested in science. He was one of the three killed.
As a tribute to her son, Fritz, who now lives in Spokane, 100 miles away from Moses Lake, came to see
the town's high school graduation.
"Even though he has died, I'm still Arnie's mother," she says. "This is the year he would have
graduated."
Over the past four years, she has become close to her son's friend Shea Haynes, who says he was best
friends with Arnie when the shooting happened. "He really loved my son and my son really loved
him," says Fritz. "They were kindred spirits."
"He brings a ray of sunshine into my life," Fritz says of Shea, who will attend Harvard this fall.
Shea also left Moses Lake after the shooting. One day, he called up his friend's mother and asked her to
hang out. "I was so thrilled," Fritz recalls.
The friendship has filled a void for both of them. Sometimes, they talk about Arnie. But their friendship
extends beyond that.
"That's the cool thing about our friendship, is we could tell each other about our problems," says
Shea. Fritz is now teaching Shea how to drive.
In Moses Lake, graduation means remembering classmates who are not here.
On the day that Natalie and Brianna and Shea graduated, Moses Lake High also awarded an honorary
degree to Fritz on behalf of her son.
Says Fritz: "I think it's important for the people who loved Arnie that I'm there."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/06/21/48hours/
main208073.shtml
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Illinois university shooting over in seconds:
police
Last Updated: Friday, February 15, 2008 | 4:22 PM ET
CBC News
Police at Northern Illinois University had little time to prevent a former student from shooting
and killing five students before killing himself in an attack that lasted just seconds, authorities
said Friday.
Northern Illinois University Police Chief Donald Grady talks about
Thursday's campus shooting during a news conference in DeKalb, Ill., on Friday.
(Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)
Investigators were still piecing together events Thursday at the campus, but do not have any
indication of the attacker's motive. University police Chief Donald Grady called the attack "an
unfortunate set of circumstances that no one could have predicted."
Sixteen other people were wounded in the shooting, which occurred Thursday afternoon in a
lecture hall as students were attending an oceanography class.
During a news conference Friday in DeKalb, Ill., Grady said the shooter kicked open a door at
the front of the classroom, entered and quickly began shooting. Police found 48 shell casings
and six shotgun shells at the scene.
Grady praised the rapid response of campus police, saying two officers were at the scene less
than 30 seconds after it started.
"All this happened before police had a chance to enter the building to stop it," he said.
DeKalb County coroner Dennis Miller also corrected earlier reports that a sixth student had died
Friday, saying there had been a mix-up between coroners' offices.
The students killed were identified as Daniel Parmenter, 20, Catalina Garcia, 20, Ryanne Mace,
19, Julianna Gehant, 32, and Gayle Dubowski, 20. All were from Illinois.
Nine of the injured students had been released as of Friday. At least two of the students
remaining in hospital trauma care units were scheduled for surgery.
Gunman had recently stopped taking medication
University president John Peters said he spent Thursday night and Friday morning visiting the
families of the students who were killed and injured.
"Their response … is heart-rending but I was impressed with their internal strength," he said.
"They will get through this with our help and the help and prayers of a lot of people across the
country and the world."
Sorority members of Northern Illinois University participate in a
candlelight vigil early Friday.
(Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)
The gunman, who was identified as 27-year-old Stephen Kazmierczak, had recently stopped
taking medication.
"He had become somewhat erratic in the past two weeks," Grady said, but declined to say what
the medication was for.
Grady said the shooter had three handguns and one shotgun. Two of the weapons — a handgun
and the shotgun — had been legally purchased six days earlier, said Grady. Police say they don't
know where he got the other two weapons.
The shooter carried the shotgun in a guitar case and wore the others on a belt, which he covered
with a coat.
Grady said police still don't have a motive and haven't found any notes from the shooter, a
University of Illinois student who was highly regarded by faculty and staff.
"There were no red flags. He was an outstanding student, revered by faculty and staff," he said.
"Those who had communication with him felt … he was a fairly normal, unstressed person."
Police are talking with people close to the shooter, said Grady.
The gunman's father, Robert Kazmierczak, briefly came out of his single-storey house in
Lakeland, Fla., to talk to reporters.
"Please leave me alone.... This is a very hard time for me," he said as he threw his arms up and
wept.
'I could get up and run or I could die here'
Lauren Carr said she was sitting in the third row when she saw the shooter walk through a door
on the right-hand side of the stage, pointing a gun straight ahead.
"I personally army-crawled halfway up the aisle," said Carr, a 20-year-old sophomore. "I said I
could get up and run or I could die here."
She said a student in front of her was bleeding, "but he just kept running."
"I heard this girl scream, 'Run, he's reloading the gun!' "
About 200 students and other mourners gathered on the campus at about midnight for a
candlelight vigil for the victims. Some cried and hugged, while others prayed.
The school will remain closed Friday and all weekend activities on campus have been cancelled.
Peters said counsellors are available in residence halls and other campus buildings.
"All of our personnel have spread out over campus to help students. We've asked them reach out
to each other in this difficult time, and they're doing it and I'm proud of them," he said.
Details about upcoming memorials will be made available over the next several days, said Peters.
The university, which has about 25,000 students enrolled, is about 100 kilometres west of
Chicago.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared a state of emergency Thursday. The move authorizes
money from the state's disaster relief fund to be paid out to local governments that helped out
during the shooting.
It's the fourth shooting at an American school in a week. The others were:

Feb. 12: A 14-year-old boy shot a 15-year-old boy in a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High
School in Oxnard, Calif. The victim was declared brain dead at hospital.


Feb. 11: A 17-year-old is accused of shooting and critically injuring a student during gym class at
Mitchell High School in Memphis, Tenn.
Feb. 8: A nursing student opened fire at the Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, killing
two students before killing herself.
33 dead in 'horrific' campus shooting in
Virginia
'We heard some loud banging … then we heard some screaming … It didn't stop for at least
two or three minutes'
Last Updated: Monday, April 16, 2007 | 11:59 PM ET
CBC News
At least 33 people are dead and more than a dozen others wounded after a gunman opened fire
at a Virginia college on Monday in what is being described as the worst campus shooting in U.S.
history.
An injured person is carried out of Norris Hall, where most of the
fatalities occurred. 'At least 30 to 40 big shots' were fired in the engineering building, a student said.
(Alan Kim/Roanoke Times/Associated Press)
The suspected gunman took his own life at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in
Blacksburg, campus police Chief W.R. Flinchum told an afternoon news conference.
Police said they now know the identity of the gunman but are withholding his name for the time
being. They said they did not know his motive or whether he was a student at the college, which
has a student body of about 26,000 in a town with a total population of only 39,573.
There were two separate shootings about two hours apart at opposite ends of the campus. The
first took place at about 7:15 a.m. ET at West Ambler Johnston dormitory, a co-ed residence
housing more than 800 students, and the second about two hours later at an engineering building,
Norris Hall.
University president Charles Steger said Norris Hall had become a "tragic" and "horrific crime
scene."
"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,"
Steger said. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."
Steger said authorities initially believed the dorm shooting was a domestic dispute because
police found a dead woman and man in one of the dorm rooms.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," Steger said.
Then at 9:25 a.m., police responded to calls of a second shooting at Norris Hall where they found
a gunman had killed himself in a second-floor classroom after shooting dozens of students at that
location.
Two weapons, which police declined to describe, were recovered and are now with a lab at the
U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to determine whether the shootings are related,
Flinchum said.
Fifteen wounded people remain in several area hospitals, Flinchum said.
An off-campus man who knew one of the victims is a "person of interest" to police and has been
co-operating, though he is not in custody, Flinchum said.
Gunman enters college room shooting
Derek O'Dell, a student wounded in the shooting, told MSNBC from a hospital that the shooter
entered a room at Norris Hall that had about a dozen or so students and started shooting.
"He didn't say anything," O'Dell said. "He just shot and then left. Some of those hit were a lot
more critical than me."
He said the shooter tried to get back into the room, but the students held the door shut.
"At first I thought it was a joke," O'Dell said. "You don't really think about gunmen just coming
onto campus. But it became very serious, very quickly."
Trey Perkins, who was sitting in a German class in Norris Hall, told the Washington Post
newspaper the gunman barged into the room at about 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a
minute and a half, squeezing off 30 shots in all.
The gunman, Perkins said, first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the students.
Perkins said the gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on
his face."
"Everyone hit the floor at that moment," said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore
studying mechanical engineering.
"And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."
'It seemed so strange'
Erin Sheehan, who was also in the German class, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate
Times, she was one of only four of the approximately two dozen people in the class to walk out
of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.
"It seemed so strange," Sheehan said.
The gunman "peeked in twice, earlier in the lesson, like he was looking for someone before he
started shooting. But then we all heard something like drilling in the walls, and someone thought
they sounded like bullets."
"That's when we blockaded the door to stop anyone from coming in."
She said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian but he had on a Boy Scout-type
outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."
"I saw bullets hit people's body," Sheehan said.
"There was blood everywhere."
As the shots rang out at Norris Hall, some students escaped through second-storey windows.
About 26,000 students attend the college in Blacksburg, Va.:
'Blacksburg is a very small town, everybody almost knows everybody. It's going to be very bad and very
sad in here,' one student said after the shooting.
A junior student named Josh, calling from campus, told the WDBJ news station in Virginia that he was
inside Norris Hall when the gunman opened fire.
"We heard some loud banging, we weren't sure if it was construction or not, then we heard some
screaming," he said.
"It didn't stop for at least two or three minutes," the student said, adding "at least 30 to 40 big
shots" were fired.
"We all jumped out the window," he said.
'There were cops holding guns, shooting all over'
According to local television station WDBJ, high winds prevented helicopters from evacuating
campus buildings.
Jamal Albarghouti, a student at the school, took video footage on his cellphone of the unfolding
incident until police asked him to move because he was too close to the scene. The sounds of
gunfire can be heard on the video while police can be seen holding guns outside of a building.
"It was really terrible. There were cops holding guns, shooting all over," Albarghouti said. "You
can't imagine how sad everyone here is."
He said he was not yet sure whether he knows any of the victims.
"Blacksburg is a very small town, everybody almost knows everybody. It's going to be very bad
and very sad in here."
Locked down for hours at dorm
Another injured person is carried out of Norris Hall.
(Alan Kim/Roanoke Times/Associated Press)
Another student, Aimee Kanode, said the shooting in the dormitory occurred on the fourth floor, one
floor above her room. She said her resident assistant banged on her door about 8 a.m. ET to tell
students to stay in their rooms.
"They had us under lockdown," Kanode said. "They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman
shot again.
"We're all locked in our dorms surfing the internet trying to figure out what's going on," Kanode
said.
Student and dorm resident Alex Miller — who shot a video of two police officers outside the
dormitory patting down a person who was later released — told CBC News it was "frightening"
when the shootings were underway just one floor below him.
He said he was a bit scared about the prospect of returning to class, adding, "You don't know if
one of your classmates could be one" of the victims.
Three local hospitals rolled out their disaster preparedness teams to deal with the victims.
Some students later questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time. They
bitterly complained that there were no public-address announcements on campus after the first
burst of gunfire. Many said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more
than two hours into the rampage — about the time the gunman struck again.
Steger defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: "We can only make decisions
based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."
'This is every parent's nightmare'
Craig Nessler, an associate dean at the school, said campus security personnel are armed and
there are loudspeakers around the campus used to broadcast emergency messages — including in
this case. He said the broadcast told students to seek shelter because of a shooting.
Nessler said he hopes extra counsellors, who have already been set up on campus, will help
students cope with the terrible incident.
"This is every parent's nightmare, even if your child is not directly involved," he said.
The college closed all entrances to the campus, told faculty and staff to go home and cancelled
classes for Monday and Tuesday. Officials said the campus itself would open Tuesday and a
convocation to grieve the dead would be held at Cassell Coliseum.
The names of the victims may be released Tuesday, Steger said at the news conference.
Second emergency closing in year
During a brief statement at the White House on Monday, U.S. President George W. Bush
pledged federal support to local law enforcement and community officials.
"Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning. When that safety is violated, that
is felt in every American classroom," he said.
"Today our nation grieves with those who have lost a loved one."
In Canada, parliamentarians offered their condolences in the House of Commons.
"Such a senseless act leaves Canadians stunned and horrified," said Liberal MP Michael
Ignatieff.
It was the second time in less than a year that the school, better known as Virginia Tech, has
ordered an emergency closure of the campus because of a shooting.
In August 2006, the opening day of classes was cancelled and the campus closed when an
escaped jail inmate killed a hospital guard and a sheriff's deputy involved in a massive manhunt
just off the campus.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/school-shootings/
Shots ring out at Western
Two students injured in parking lot before school starts
By BRIAN HAYNES, DAVID KIHARA and ANTONIO PLANAS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
What began as an argument in a convenience store parking lot spilled onto
the campus of Western High School Tuesday morning, bringing gunfire
and bloodshed with it.
The shooting in the school parking lot sent students scattering for cover and left two freshmen
injured by gunfire. The two injured students, a boy and a girl, were sent home after being treated
at University Medical Center. The shooting began about 6:30 a.m. as students began arriving at
the campus at Decatur Boulevard and Bonanza Road.
Sophomore Celia Gonzalez said she heard the shots as she was about to enter a school building.
She turned her head and saw a student lying on the pavement holding his leg, she said.
She and her classmates, many of whom were getting off buses, took off.
"I started running. I wasn't about to get shot," Gonzalez said. "There were a lot of people
running. Nobody knew what was going on."
Las Vegas police believe the shooting was related to an off-campus argument at a convenience
store a block north of the school.
Three Western students, including one of the shooting victims, were in a car at the intersection of
Decatur and Washington Avenue when the gunman sped by and fishtailed into a parking lot
planter at a Rebel Oil gasoline station.
Believing his car had been struck by the gunman's vehicle, the student pulled into the store
parking lot, yelled at the other driver and drove toward school, Las Vegas police spokesman Jose
Montoya said.
The gunman followed, and the two parties exchanged more words at a stoplight just outside
campus.
The gunman trailed the students into the school parking lot and opened fire on them as they
exited their car, Montoya said.
A 14-year-old boy was shot in the ankle and a 14-year-old girl, who was in the parking lot and
not with the intended targets, was hit by bullet shrapnel, police said.
Sophomore Kenny Ponder, 15, said he saw the gunman's blue Ford Mustang creep into the
parking lot and stop as a hand holding a gun extended from a window and fired about six shots.
Ponder ran, fearing the gunman would return.
He didn't, and within a minute, several police cars pulled into the parking lot.
After Ponder returned to Western, school officials ordered all students to stay in the cafeteria, he
said.
"I wanted to go home," he said.
Senior Michael Evers, 17, who transferred to Western four days before the incident, said he saw
the 14-year-old boy "get a hole blown in his leg."
For at least one parent, the shooting conjured up images of the deadliest school shooting in U.S.
history.
"My stomach was in my throat. ... I was thinking this is Columbine all over again," said Margie
Rearich, who fielded a call from her husband at about 7 a.m. informing her of the shooting.
Rearich, who was at Western Tuesday afternoon to pick up her son Nick, a freshman, said she
calmed down after she learned details of the incident. She said the school is generally safe and
she typically sees Las Vegas police patrolling nearby streets in the morning.
She said the incident was more about street violence spilling over into the school's parking lot
than an issue directly related to school safety.
That sentiment was echoed by Principal Pearl Morgan, who oversees the school of about 2,300
students.
"This is an isolated situation," Morgan said. "Regardless of where the students went, if an
individual wanted to accost them, he would have."
Morgan said her school is safe. In addition to the two police officers, the school has five campus
monitors and seven administrators who roam the campus throughout the day.
Morgan sent a letter home to parents Tuesday informing them of the incident.
The letter said there was no "subsequent threat to our school and students" because of the
immediate response to the shooting by school staff and police.
That is why the school was never placed on lock down and classes, which began about 30
minutes after the shooting, were not canceled, Morgan said.
"We shouldn't have closed the school because the situation was such that it didn't affect the
student body," she said. "A lot of students weren't even aware that it happened."
The decision not to cancel classes didn't go over well with some students.
"They made us go to class after this like it was nothing," said sophomore Miranda Crespin, who
heard the shots and ran for safety inside the school.
"If there's a drive-by shooting, they should have canceled school," said freshman Josie Morale,
14. "We could have gotten shot."
Las Vegas and school district police will run increased patrols around the Western campus today,
Morgan said.
At the time of the shooting, the two police officers assigned to the school were inside, said Lt.
Ken Young, a spokesman with Clark County School District police.
Campus police determine when and where to patrol a school, and those decisions vary from
school to school, he said.
Young would not speculate whether a police officer patrolling the parking lot could have
prevented the shooting.
"I can't tell you that," he said. "We're still investigating."
Patrick Fiel, a school security expert with ADT Security Services in Alexandria, Va., said
shootings such as the one at Western can be prevented by stationing security guards or building
gated entrances at parking lots to make sure only students and school staff can enter campus.
Officers posted in front of the schools, as well as security cameras, can also act as deterrents, he
said.
"A police presence is highly critical at school nowadays," he said.
Clark County School District does not restrict access to its high school parking lots.
The gunman was a black man in his late 20s to early 30s, 5 feet 10 inches tall and 170 pounds.
He wore dreadlocks, a black-and-white checkered jacket, blue jeans and blue-and-white tennis
shoes. He was driving a 1986 to 1991 blue Ford Mustang LX coupe with five-star rims.
Anyone with information on the shooting can call police at 828-5634 or leave anonymous tips
with Crime Stoppers at 385-5555. Crime Stoppers offered up to a $2,000 reward.
JANET JENSEN / THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Rorth Kok, along with friends and family, mourns the death of his son Samnang Kok at his Tacoma home on Wednesday.
Samnang Kok, known as "Sam," was shot to death at Tacoma's Foss High School on Wednesday.
Boy killed in hallway of high school; student arrested
By SCOTT GUTIERREZ AND BRAD WONG
P-I REPORTERS
TACOMA -- Samnang Kok's mother urged her son to finish high school. When he dropped out
and had run-ins with the police, she still pushed him to finish his education.
But on Wednesday, Kok, 17, was shot to death by another student as faculty and students
watched in horror in a crowded hallway at Tacoma's Foss High School just as classes restarted
after winter break.
His death devastated his parents, Rorth and Ry Sou, who immigrated 17 years ago to the U.S.
after surviving the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. At the time, Ry Sou was pregnant
with her son and was seeking a better life for him.
"I told him to go to school. Now he's gone forever," his mother, 47, said at her Tacoma home
Wednesday. "My son went to school, why isn't he coming back?"
Police arrested a suspect about two hours after the 7:30 a.m. shooting. The 18-year-old was
wandering along a residential street a few blocks from the school with a gun, but Tacoma police
still are investigating.
The suspect, who was in the Pierce County Jail Wednesday night on suspicion
of first-degree murder, spoke with detectives but did not disclose a motive,
police said. The P-I typically does not name suspects until they have been
charged.
Tacoma police Chief Don Ramsdell said the suspect and victim knew each other
and that the attack was not random and not gang related.
Kok
By 8:30 a.m., police secured the public school, which has 1,700 students and
is located near Cheney Stadium, and students were sent home, Tacoma School District
spokeswoman Pam Thompson said. Classes were canceled Wednesday but are expected to
resume today at 10 a.m.
The shooting started in a hallway near the school's auto shop.
"I thought it was a joke for a minute," said student Josh Wilber, 15, who was about 10 feet
behind the shooter when he saw three shots fired about 5 feet away from the victim. "He didn't
get up."
Freshman Sam Sao, 14, was in the lunchroom, waiting for the bell to
ring, when shots rang out.
"Everyone was yelling, 'Get in the gym! Get in the gym!' " she said. "At
first we thought it was a fight. Then the teachers started getting on the
tables and screaming."
Foss High School Principal Don Herbert said Wednesday that he was
nearby when the incident occurred.
"It's not a very fun situation, especially when I was right there. What
can you say? What can you do about it? I was 20 feet away. The only
thing I could have done was taken the shot instead. But it happened
very fast."
Like other state public schools, Foss has an emergency-preparedness
plan and has conducted lockdown drills already this year, Tacoma
Public Schools spokeswoman Leanna Albrecht said.
It has no metal detectors, but two security officers and a Tacoma police
officer are on duty during school hours. The district also incorporated
lessons about school safety into the curriculum in recent years.
Still, even with such preparations, there were glitches.
RUSS CARMACK /
THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Monica Snyder, a freshman at
Foss High School , and her
boyfriend, sophomore
Matthew Warren, embrace
outside Tacoma's Foss High
School after students and
faculty were evacuated
following Wednesday's
shooting.
The school went into lockdown when the shooting occurred. Students
were later evacuated to nearby Wilson High School before being returned to Foss and sent home
on their regular bus routes, Albrecht said, but that caused confusion and panicked some parents.
The district plans to review its evacuation procedures, and will likely make some changes,
Albrecht said.
Outside Kok's family's home late Wednesday, friends
and relatives arrived with hugs and flowers as news of
his death spread.
Along with two brothers, Kosal, 23 and Rith, 26; and a
sister, Lisa, 13, he also had a 2-year-old son, Makhai.
Although he dropped out of school when his father,
Rorth, was hospitalized with pneumonia a few years
ago, Makhai was a main factor in his decision to quit a
job at McDonald's and return to school, his family and
friends said.
He also seemed to be improving his life following 2004
convictions for car theft, obstructing a police officer and
a drug violation, according to Juvenile Court records.
He aimed to join the Army and become a mechanic, according to his family. He also hoped to
save a few thousand dollars to travel to Cambodia and build a home for his paternal
grandmother, who still lives there, his parents said.
"I just want the killer to know -- to ask his mother why he killed my boy," Ry Sou said.
Kok, whose friends knew him as "Sam," liked playing basketball and video games and worked on
imported cars, said his friend, Matthew Touch, 14, of Tacoma.
"Sam was trying to change his life," Touch said.
Josh Danielson, another friend who joined Kok's relatives at a vigil late Wednesday outside Foss
High School, said Kok knew the shooter.
"But he never told us about any problems that involved (the suspect). That's why it's so
unexpected," Danielson said.
Gov. Chris Gregoire offered her condolences to Kok's family
in a statement.
"We are reminded once again of the importance of ensuring
that our children are protected and our schools are safe
places to learn," she said. "This incident highlights the need
to complete the school mapping project, which provides law
enforcement with the tools they need to react swiftly and
effectively to school emergencies."
AP
Tacoma resident Vonitha Carter, 40, made the 911 call that
led police to the suspect. Carter, whose 17-year-old son is
a junior at Foss, said her son called her from a cell phone
to tell her about the shooting.
Freshman Adar J. Blankenship looks out of a
window of a bus parked in front of Foss High
School as he and other students leave for the
day, after Wednesday's shooting. Classes
were canceled on Wednesday but are
Shortly after his call, Carter heard her dog barking as a
expected to resume today.
teenager walked down her street.
The teenager disappeared down a gravel alley and walked by again about two hours later,
causing more barking. She called police after seeing the teenager, who appeared suspicious, she
said.
"I was surprised when the dispatcher asked: 'Do you know you're the one that apprehended
him?' " Carter said. "My nosiness finally paid off."
Angela Millette was among the parents who flocked to the area to pick up their children from a
nearby grocery store parking lot.
Millette, still in pajamas after leaving home so quickly, threw her arms around her daughter,
Ashley, 16, as the sophomore stepped off a bus near the school
"I was looking for her and finally, by the grace of God ... the person opened up the school bus,
and there's my daughter," Millette said. "I was so glad to see that she was OK."
A memorial fund is being set up at KeyBank in the name of Samnang Kok.
Death in the classroom
By Georgina Pattinson
BBC News
Virginia Tech, Columbine,
Jonesboro. The big
question after every such
shooting is why - a
question novelists,
filmmakers and
songwriters seek to
answer. Why does this
crime resonate?
Just days after Virginia Tech
Mourning lost lives at Virginia Tech
student Cho Seung-hui took
his own life after gunning down 32 others, Jodi Picoult's latest
novel was published in the UK. In a somewhat uncomfortable
coincidence, Nineteen Minutes tells the story of a high school
shooting.
Queen of the bestseller lists and book clubs, Picoult typically
grabs challenging subjects with relish. She is not the first to
tackle the phenomenon of campus killings - so too did the
novelists DBC Pierre with Vernon God Little, and Lionel
Shriver with We Need To Talk About Kevin, and there are
films, pop songs and documentaries aplenty.
But what is it about this crime that inspires art?
Perhaps because we are so
horrified - and fascinated - by
the poignancy of young lives
cruelly snuffed out. And a
work of fiction seeks to get
inside the unknowable mind of
the killer - we want to know
what turns a loner into a
monster.
The school
shooter is walking a
very fine line
between killing
himself and taking
other people with him
Jodi Picoult
And perhaps it is because it could happen to us. "It's not
because we're immune: it's because we're lucky. It can
happen anywhere at any time and I think there's that
constant fear, even if we don't want to admit it to ourselves,"
Picoult says.
In Nineteen Minutes, 17-year-old Peter Houghton kills 10 and
injures 19 of his fellow pupils. He is lonely and bullied, his
self-esteem whittled away from the first day he goes to
school. He is a sensitive boy who represents something
"other" to the brash, hostile students around him. He is
smaller than average, intelligent and tortured.
From bullied to bully
Picoult is anxious to make clear that there are differences
between her fiction and what happened at Virginia Tech (a
topic on which she is now well versed, her book having been
published in the US a month before the shootings). Peter, for
instance, does not exhibit the disturbed behaviour that Cho's
teachers and fellow students noted.
CAMPUS SHOOTINGS IN THE ARTS
Novels include We Need To Talk
About Kevin (Lionel Shriver)
Songs include Rival (Pearl Jam),
The book asks what might
have stopped Peter picking
up that gun? His parents
torture themselves with
desperate questions; the local
detective suffers pangs of
conscience.
The Good Die Young (Tupac
Shakur) and I Don't Like Mondays
(Boomtown Rats)
Films include Elephant and Heart of
America
And Michael Moore's Bowling for
Columbine documentary
But the average stroppy
adolescent will - at some
point - look like a school
shooter. There's no answer to Virginia shootings
why a kid on the margins
should become a murderer.
"When you have a history of being chronically bullied, three
things happen," Picoult says. "You either deal with it - you're
strong enough to deal with it - and you go on to become a
very productive member of society; you take it out on
yourself, the violence becomes self-directed; or you take your
rage out on someone else.
"And even then, most psychiatrists will tell you that the
school shooter is walking a very fine line when he walks into
that school - between killing himself and taking other people
with him."
While researching Nineteen Minutes, she saw a tape in which
Columbine killer Eric Harris is shoved to one side as he walks
down the school corridor.
"He doesn't even react," she says. "The psychiatrist said [it
shows] it's so common for him he didn't have to react."
Set text
Nineteen Minutes is now being taught in high schools and
Picoult discusses the book with teenagers who tell her that
they know people just like Peter. "They see him every day.
They understand this."
Picoult - who was herself bullied at school, and had three
fingers broken in a locker - dedicates Nineteen Minutes to
those who are a "little bit different, a little bit scared, a little
bit unpopular". She adds that empathising with a victim of
bullying is not the same as sympathising with a killer.
"There's still a difference between a child who's fixated on
violence and a child who just doesn't fit in," she says. "The
minute the victim picks up a gun he becomes the biggest
bully of all."
In the wake of these horrors, there is always a rash of
copycat threats. "Because this is happening in every school it's not just Virginia Tech, and guess what? It's not just Cho.
It's everywhere. You've got to start looking at how you
defuse that bomb before someone even lights the fuse."
SHOOTING
Monday, May 18, 2009
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AP
May 18, 2009: A South Lafourche Parish Sherrff deputy stands guard at the rear door at Louisiana middle school after a student shoots
himself.
LAROSE, La. — A Louisiana middle school student who stormed into a classroom Monday and fired a
gunshot over a teacher's head, then shot himself in a bathroom had detailed plans for a rampage in a journal
and suicide note, authorities said.
The 15-year-old student, whose name was not released, fired once around 9 a.m. local time inside a classroom at
Larose-Cut Off Middle School, then shot himself in the head, said Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre. He was in
critical but stable condition. The teacher had never taught the teen.
Webre said investigators found a note describing the boy's plans to "gear up" before his spree, along with a drawing
of how he'd dress. Although he apparently was intent on killing people, he was armed with only four bullets for the
.25-caliber, semiautomatic pistol he had taken from his father's home during the weekend. The boy's mother noticed
he seemed nervous before school, but he said he was just worried about seeing his standardized test results, which
were released Monday, Webre said.
About 500 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders attend the school in a rural community of about 7,000 people, some 45
miles southwest of New Orleans. Webre said the boy had no disciplinary problems at school and hadn't been in
trouble with the law. The teen had no reason to be in the classroom, he said.
He was a year or two older than most of his classmates who described him as a quiet boy who never talked about
guns or violence.
Webre said investigators found inside the boy's bookbag a completely filled journal and two loose sheets of paper
that appeared to be a plan for the shooting and a suicide note. The school has both standing and handheld metal
detectors, but they aren't used all the time and weren't in use Monday.
Webre said the boy arrived at the school in uniform — white shirt, khaki pants — but changed into camouflage pants
shown in his drawing. In an expletive-laced note, he wrote, "First, I will tell my art class teacher that I had to go to the
bathroom. Then I would go to the last stall and 'gear up."'
The school was scheduled to reopen Tuesday with enhanced security and several counselors on hand.
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March 11, 2009, 8:02 am
Updates on the German School Shooting
By Robert Mackey
Michael
Dalder/Reuters At a church service in Winnenden, Germany, the town mourned the dead after a young
gunman killed at least 15 people, starting in his former school on Wednesday, March 11.
Update | March 12 As Carter Dougherty and Victor Homola report this morning from Germany
for The Times, authorities in Germany have begun piecing together a portrait of the young
gunman, although an earlier report that he had posted a warning of his attack online hours before
setting off is now being dismissed as a forgery.
March 11 Updates:
As the day goes on, our news article by Carter Dougherty and Victor Homola, reporting for The
Times from Germany, will be updated as more information becomes available. We will add some
additional details here on The Lede.
Update | 6:35 p.m. Another sadly relevant article from the Times archive: in 2002, Steven
Erlanger visited the German town of Erfurt, a few months after a large school shooting had taken
place there and wrote “After a School Massacre, a Sadness Without End.”
Update | 4:37 p.m. The chronology of the shootings on Spiegel’s Web site is chilling. It begins
with these entries from about 9:30 a.m. local time in Germany:
Tim K. climbs the stairs to the second floor. He storms into a classroom where he shoots five
students in the head at close range. “The children appear to have been totally surprised. When
their bodies were later found, some of them still had pens in their hands,” the state’s interior
minister, Heribert Rech, will later say.
K. storms into the next room, shoots two more students and injures several. Two of the injured
will die later on their way to the hospital. As Tim K. leaves one room to reload his weapon, a
teacher reportedly locks the door. He tries to shoot off the lock, but he is unsuccessful.
Tim K. then moves to the physics classroom on the upper floor, where he shoots a female teacher
who is later found dead behind an experiment table. Betty, a crying 15-year-old student, later
reports her experiences during the rampage. “I heard three shots and screams,” she says. “At first
I thought it was a joke. But then someone shouted: ‘run, run.’ Then I saw other students jumping
out of windows, and I ran.”
The police receive the first emergency call from a student who is calling from his mobile phone.
“We could hardly understand what he said,” a police spokesman would later say. “You could
hear screaming in the background.”
Update | 4:28 p.m. In a detailed chronology of the deadly shooting attack that took place this
morning in Winnenden, Germany, the English-language Web site of the German magazine
Spiegel reports that the gunman, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer was “armed with a Beretta that he
appears to have taken from his parents’ bedroom.” Spiegel notes that:
Marijan Murat/European Pressphoto Agency An image made from a
police photo of the gun, a 9mm Beretta, used in the shootings.
The perpetrator’s father, as part of a gun club, allegedly legally owns 15 weapons. (Ed’s note: In
Germany, private gun ownership is illegal in most cases unless a person is a registered member
of a gun club.) Fourteen are stored in a safe, and the Beretta, which had been in the parents’
bedroom, has disappeared.
Update | 4:19 p.m. German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports that:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed the nation’s horror after the fatal shootings of
Wednesday, March 11.
“It’s a day of sorrow for all of Germany,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin. “It is
incomprehensible that, within seconds, a terrible crime took pupils and teachers to their deaths.”
Torsten Silz/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images Students comfort each other during a memorial service at a church in
Winnenden, Germany, after the school shooting on Wednesday.
Update | 2:37 p.m. To clear up some confusion, Victor Homola, reporting from Germany for
The Times, tells us from Germany that police there, who had said earlier that 10 students had
died are now saying that their report of a tenth death was incorrect. Victor writes that the death
toll at the school, according to the latest police statement is “nine students — eight girls and a
boy — and three female teachers.” The state interior minister, Heribert Rech said at a news
conference that seven other students remain in a hospital.
We told you earlier this afternoon that the German magazine Spiegel had reported that 10
students had died. At that time, Spiegel was likely working on the basis of that now-retracted
police statement. Now Spiegel, on its German-language Web site says that 9 students were
killed, making the overall death toll 15. (Somewhat confusingly, Spiegel’s English-language
Web site has not yet been updated to reflect this development, but obviously they work on their
German-language site first and then update the English site.)
Daniel
Maurer/Associated Press The body of one of the victims of the young gunman was carried out of the
school in Winnenden, Germany on Wednesday evening.
Update | 1:12 p.m. The German newspaper Bild has posted what it says is a grainy photograph
of the gunman, Tim Kretschmer, on its Web site. Attempting to piece together a profile of Tim
Kretschmer, The Guardian reports that he left the Albertville school last summer “with middling
grades” and was working as an apprentice. According to The Guardian:
The teenager’s father was a member of the local gun club who had a small arsenal of weapons,
according to Jürgen Kiesl, the mayor of Leutenbach, the suburb of 5,000 people where the
Kretchmers lived.
According to a Süddeutsche Zeitung report, a neighbor of the Kretchmers said that Tim was fond
of table tennis. Süddeutsche Zeitung also reports that during a police search of his family’s
home, one of his father’s “16 or 17 guns” was missing.
The Guardian notes that
Despite appearances, he wasn’t completely forgettable: when he strolled into his former school
this morning dressed in a black combat uniform with his face uncovered, he was immediately
recognised by teachers and former classmates.
Update | 12:37 p.m. The English-language Web site Spiegel Online reports that the death toll is
now 17, including the attacker, Tim Kretschmer. Spiegel says that the dead include “10 pupils all
aged 14 and 15 and three women teachers.”
Update | 10:32 a.m. The German newspaper Bild and CNN both report that German police have
released the name of the 17-year-old who carried out the shooting attacks. He was Tim
Kretschmer.
Update | 9:55 a.m. An article from the archives might give some perspective on today’s
shootings. In 2000, a team of reporters and researchers at The New York Times looked in detail
at the phenomenon of mass killings for an article published on April 9, 2000 under the headline:
“They Threaten, Seethe and Unhinge, Then Kill in Quantity.” The article was written by Ford
Fessenden and sketched a profile of:
102 killers in 100 rampage attacks examined by The New York Times in a computer-assisted
study looking back more than 50 years and including the shootings in 1999 at Columbine High
School in Littleton, Colo., and one by a World War II veteran on a residential street in Camden,
N.J., in 1949. Four hundred twenty-five people were killed and 510 people were injured in the
attacks.
Mr. Fessenden also wrote that:
Though the attacks are rare when compared with other American murders, they have provoked
an intense national discussion about crime, education and American culture.
But in recent years, as this timeline of recent school shootings compiled by the BBC today
shows, there have been attacks of this kind in several countries outside the United States,
including: Finland, Canada, Argentina, Scotland and Germany.
Update | 9:42 a.m. German media reports say that there is a primary school right beside the
secondary school where the shootings took place today. Spiegel’s English-language Web site
reports that in the aftermath of the shootings:
More than 1,000 pupils were led to safety. German news channel N-TV reported that there was
chaos around the school complex as parents were gathering there. “You can see the shock and
horror in people’s eyes,” one eyewitness said.
Update | 9:37 a.m. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that Helmut Rau, the
minister of culture for the state of Baden-Württemberg, where the town of Winnenden is located,
said that the former student who carried out the attack “was never conspicuous,” and had
graduated from the school in 2008.
Update | 9:23 a.m. The Web site of German broadcaster ZDF explains that the name of the
school, the Albertville-Realschule, is related to the fact that the town of Winnenden in BadenWürttemberg is twinned with the French city of Albertville, which hosted the Winter Olympics
in 1992. ZDF adds that there are are 580 students registered at the secondary school and 32
teachers. ZDF also reports that the person killed outside the school as the gunman made his
escape was a gardener at a nearby clinic.
Update | 9:15 a.m. The Twitter feed of the German newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten reports
that the shooting began at 9:30 a.m. local time at the technical school in Winnenden. Spiegel
reports that the gunman had entered two classrooms and started firing.
Update | 9:04 a.m. According to Spiegel, the German newspaper Bild has reported that the
teenage gunman’s parents were in the possession of 18 weapons and that his father is a “wealthy
entrepreneur.” Spiegel Online says that “Special units of the police stormed the house of Tim K’s
parents, his mother was interrogated by the police.”
Update | 8:57 a.m. German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to speak soon.
A German police officer
standing guard outside a secondary school in Winnenden, Germany, where a former student went on a
rampage that left 16 dead on Wednesday.
Update | 8:55 a.m. The English-language Web site of the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle
reports that the gunman was killed during a shoot-out with police:
Stuttgart police said the 17-year-old black-clad gunman was killed 40 kilometers away from his
former school where he opened fire in a classroom.
The gunman is reported to have fled in a car to the neighboring town of Wendlingen. Police said
the gunman was killed in a shootout with the police near a supermarket. Authorities say the total
death toll has risen to 16.
Update | 8:52 a.m. Spiegel’s Web site has a slide show of images showing the AlbertvilleRealschule in Winnenden in the wake of the attack.
Update | 8:50 a.m. Germany’s N-TV reports that the gunman has been identified as “17-yearold Tim K.” Police sources confirm that the death toll is now at 16 people, including the gunman.
Police say that nine students and three teachers were killed at the technical school in Winnenden,
where Tim K. had previously been a student. During his escape from the school, the gunman
killed one person near the school and two passers-by. Two policemen were seriously injured.
Update | 8:35 a.m. CNN, citing The Associated Press, now reports that 16 people have died.
German news media report that the gunman died in a supermarket in a nearby town after being
caught by police. A news conference is expected soon.
Update | 8:23 a.m. The BBC has an English-language report with video showing heavily-armed
German police at the Albertville school. The BBC also has a slide show of police outside the
school after the shootings.
Update | 8:20 a.m. German speakers can see video from the the Albertville school in
Winnenden on the German broadcaster ZDF’s Web site.
Update | 8:14 a.m. The Associated Press reports that 11 people have died. A police news
conference is expected to begin soon.
Update | 7:54 a.m. German media outlets including Spiegel and N-TV report that the shooter is
apparently dead.
Original post:
Just hours after a mass shooting in Alabama, German police are searching for a 17-year-old
former student of a secondary school in the town of Winnenden, outside Stuttgart, Germany,
who is believed to have gone on a shooting spree at the school, killing at least 10 people, 9 of
them students.
Carter Dougherty and Victor Homola reporting for The New York Times from Germany explain:
The shooter fled into the center of town after the attack, which occurred around 9:30 a.m. The
police issued a public warning to motorists not to pick up hitch-hikers and said the town center at
Winnenden, a town of 27,000, had been sealed off.
News reports said other schools in the area were evacuated as helicopters circled above.
Winnenden is located in southwestern Germany:
View Larger Map
School shootings are not new in Germany. A timeline of similar shootings at schools around the
world put together by The Guardian includes another large-scale shooting in a German school:
Wearing a mask and dressed as a ninja, 19-year-old expelled student Robert Steinhäuser shot and
killed 16 people at the Johann Gutenberg gymnasium in Erfurt. Thirteen teachers, two students
and one police officer were killed and another seven people were injured, as he moved from
classroom to classroom. His last words before his suicide were: “That’s enough for today”, said
to a teacher who confronted him.
In light of today’s incident, Spiegel Online, the English-language site of the German magazine,
has surfaced a profile of the 18-year-old who carried out the last school shooting in the country,
which took place in 2006 at a secondary school in Emsdetten, a a small town of 36,000 in
northwestern Germany. In that incident wounded 11 people before killing himself.
Students killed in German school shooting
• Gunman kills 15 before dying in police shootout
• Killer was former pupil of Albertville school, reports say
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Buzz up!
Digg it
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Helen Pidd and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 March 2009 16.34 GMT
Gunman opens fire in German school Link to this video
A 17-year-old gunman went on the rampage at his former high school in southern Germany this
morning, leaving 15 people dead and several others injured, before he was killed in a shootout
with police.
The ex-student, named locally as Tim Kretschmer, entered the school in Winnenden, a town of
27,000 near Stuttgart, at about 9.30am (8.30am GMT) and began firing.
Dressed in black combat gear, he killed nine students and three teachers at the Albertville high
school, as well as one person at a nearby clinic, before fleeing with a hostage in a car to the town
of Wendlingen, around 25 miles (40km) away, police said.
In a shoot-out with police in front of a postal sorting centre, two additional passersby were killed
and two officers seriously injured, bringing the total death toll to 16, including the gunman. It
was not clear whether the gunman had been shot by police or taken his own life.
The region's interior minister, Heribert Rech, said that the nine dead pupils were aged between
14 and 16, and the three teachers killed were women. Police had said a 10th student died in
hospital, but later retracted the statement, blaming a communications error.
"He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath," said the area's police chief,
Erwin Hetger. "I've never seen anything like this in my life. I've been president of police in
Baden-Württemberg for 19 years now, and I can't remember a deed as terrible as this."
This afternoon Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, expressed her outrage at the killing spree.
"It is unimaginable that in just seconds, pupils and teachers were killed — it is an appalling
crime," she told reporters, adding her feelings were with the families of the victims.
"This is a day of mourning for the whole of Germany," she said.
The gunman entered the school during morning lessons and opened fire at random before
fleeing, police said. The school was then evacuated.
Bild, the German tabloid, reported that Kretschmer entered one classroom, belonging to class
10D, three times. On the third occasion, he looked at the terrified pupils still alive and asked:
"Aren't you all dead yet?"