http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15105305/?GT1=8618
NICKEL MINES, Pa. - A 32-year-old truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors and shot to death at least three of the girls and then himself, authorities said. Seven other girls were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds, some to the head.
It was the nation’s third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and similar to an attack just days earlier at a school in Colorado.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially reported that six people were killed, but later said he wasn’t certain. Police said they found four people, including the gunman, dead in the schoolhouse.
The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts, had been in the school for about 45 minutes before police arrived, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller said.
Roberts walked into the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School with a shotgun and handgun, then released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with infants before barring the doors, Miller said.
The girls were lined up along a blackboard and their feet were bound, he said.
A teacher called police around 10:30 a.m. and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.
Once police arrived, Roberts called 911 and threatened to shoot if the police didn’t leave, Miller said. When police tried to call Roberts’ cell phone, shots rang out inside.
Officers had to break windows to get into the school. By then, three young girls had been killed “execution-style” and the gunman was dead, Miller said.
The wounded included three girls, all critical and ages 6 through 12, who were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital, spokesman John Lines told NBC affiliate WGAL-TV.
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