GERMANY: Masked man wounds 11 after storming German school

A masked man wearing explosives and brandishing rifles opened fire at a school in the western German town of Emsdetten on Monday (November 20), wounding at least 11 people before committing suicide. Police identified the man as an 18-year old former pupil at the Scholl secondary school where the attack took place. He was known to authorities and due in court this week for weapons violations, they said. German television broadcast pictures they said came from the man's Website, showing him standing in the forest in camouflaged military fatigues and brandishing a high-tech rifle. Police had blocked the Website, which they said contained a note warning of his plans, by mid-afternoon. Police had blocked off the school in Emsdetten, a town of 35,000 near the Dutch border, and were searching the grounds. Dozens of students and parents, some of them crying, comforted each other nearby. The prosecutor said at least 11 people within the school had been wounded by the man. Five of the wounded -- three boys, a girl and a janitor -- received gunshots to the stomach, arms, legs or hands, but none of the injuries were life-threatening. An additional 16 police who stormed the school were being treated for smoke inhalation after the man detonated smoke bombs. Commandos entered the building shortly after 10 a.m. and evacuated four children before finding the man dead on the second floor. Police said it was unclear whether the man, who was found with two rifles and a knife, had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound or by detonating explosives he was carrying. Police said the man's parents were in deep shock and that his father sought treatment in the intensive care unit of a local hospital after receiving news of the shooting. In April 2002, Germany suffered its worst school shooting when a gunman killed 17 people, including himself, at a high school in the eastern city of Erfurt. That shooting reportedly began after a student said he was not going to take a maths test and pulled out a gun. A hotline was set up to offer counselling for Scholl students and parents. There are 693 pupils at the school, according to its Website, aged roughly between 10 and 15 years of age.

ITN Source | November 21, 2006

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