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?"
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A student teacher then threw herself protectively in front of a student. Kretschmer shot her dead, the paper said.
One pupil, from class 9C, told the radio station Antenne 1 of her terror. "We were in the computer room. Suddenly we heard bangs and then our teacher ran out, looked around and just closed the door. And later we were told by another teacher that a gunman was on the loose, and that we had been told by police that we should go out to the swimming pool."
Another pupil, 18-year-old Janina Schmidt, told the SWR TV station: "We were sitting in the classroom, then we heard shots, five or six of them, and afterwards, we saw a number of police vans and ambulances came along.
"I feel as though I'm in a film. You see this sort of thing all the time in films or on the TV, and now suddenly it's happening in my life. I just don't know how to react to it."
Bild reported that Kretschmer's parents had 18 weapons in their house. Another paper, Die Zeit, said that one of the guns could not be found by police when they searched the house.
Germany has strict weapons laws, with gunholders having to fulfil certain criteria on age and weapons expertise to obtain a firearms licence.
Bild said the boy's father was a wealthy businessman from a neighbouring area.
Helmut Rau, the regional education minister, told reporters that the gunman had not stood out at school. "He was never conspicuous. He left the school in 2008 and had started an apprenticeship."
He had average grades and had "never in any way" behaved unusually, said Rau, adding that the boy clearly had a "split personality".
About 1,000 children attend the school in a suburb 12 miles north-east of Stuttgart.
German television said the gunman initially fled towards the centre of Winnenden. Reuters reported that helicopters circled above the town while rescue workers and firefighters were at the school.
Witnesses told German media of hearing shots and screaming. One pupil said she first thought it was a joke, then saw her classmates jump out of windows before fleeing herself.
A police spokesperson told Bild the gunman shot a passerby near the psychiatric clinic in Winnenden. A worker from the clinic told the paper: "I heard six or seven shots. I am not allowed to leave my post."
The German government was "deeply shocked and incensed about the appalling killing spree", Ulrich Wilhelm, a spokesman for the chancellor, Angela Merkel, said in Berlin.
Several school shootings have shocked Germany in recent years. In 2006 a masked man wearing explosives and brandishing rifles opened fire at a school in the western town of Emsdetten, wounding at least 11 people before killing himself.
In April 2002 Germany saw its worst school shooting when a gunman killed 16 people before turning the gun on himself, at a high school in the eastern city of Erfurt.
Source= http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/11/germany-school-shooting
prayers go to their families 
