Teenage gunman attacks German school, kills 15

A 17-year old gunman went on a shooting spree at his former school in southwest Germany on Wednesday, slaying 15 people before dying himself in a shootout with police, authorities said.

The former student, dressed in black combat gear, entered the school in Winnenden, a town of 27,000 near Stuttgart, at around 9.30 a.m. (0830 GMT) and began firing.

Nine pupils, three teachers and three passers-by were killed before thethe gunman fled with a hostage in a car. He was killed in a shootout with police.

Two additional passers-by were killed and two policemen seriously injured in the shootout, 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, Rainer Koeller, a police spokesman in nearby Waiblingen said.

"I've been president of police in Baden-Wuerttemberg for 19 years now, and I can't remember a deed as terrible as this," said Erwin Hetger, police chief in the southwestern state.

A German government spokesman in Berlin said he was "deeply shocked" by the incident.

Fired indiscriminately

Police said the gunman had entered two classrooms at the Albertville-Realschule in Winnenden and probably opened fired at pupils indiscriminately.

Television pictures showed dozens of heavily-armed black-clad SWAT teams entering the two-storey white school building.

"Police are coming through the whole time. They're obviously looking all over town for him," said Roberto Seifert, who works at a company neighboring the school. "We've never had anything like this," he told Reuters.

German media reports said the suspect had used weapons his parents legally held at home, although police could not confirm this.

Germany has strict weapons laws, with gun holders having to fulfill certain criteria on age and weapons expertise to obtain a license for firearms.

Latest school shooting

The shooting is the latest to shock Germany in recent years.

In February 2002, a 22-year-old gunman killed the headmaster and seriously injured another person in a vocational training establishment he attended at Freising, near Munich.

Two months later, 16 people were killed at a high-school in Erfurt in eastern Germany, by a 19-year-old former student, who then killed himself.

In November 2006, a former student at a vocational school in
Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany went a shooting spree in the establishment, injuring 37 people before turning his gun on himself.

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