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Police surround Amish schoolhouse after report of shooting in Pennsylvania
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – Police surrounded a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday in response to reports of multiple shooting victims, a television station reported.
WGAL-TV said the incident occurred in southeastern Lancaster County.
About three dozen Amish people were standing behind a police line, and at least two ambulances had left the scene, the station said. Television news helicopters showed a person being taken away on a stretcher to a waiting medical helicopter.
The Lancaster County 911 Web site reported that dozens of emergency units were dispatched to a "medical emergency" at 10:45 a.m. Monday.
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Police: Shooting at Amish school results in 'number' of deaths
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A gunman killed "a number" of people at a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, state police said.
The shooter was among the dead, state police Cpl. Ralph Striebig said.
"There are a number of people dead," Striebig said. "The exact number I do not know yet."
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Police: Shooting at Amish school results in 'number' of deaths
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A gunman killed "a number" of people at a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, state police said.
The shooter was among the dead, state police Cpl. Ralph Striebig said.
"There are a number of people dead," Striebig said. "The exact number I do not know yet."
AP Photos pursuing.
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Police say 'a number' of people dead in shooting at Amish school in Pennsylvania
Eds: ADDS background. Will be led. AP reporters, photographers and videographers are en route.
AP Photos pursuing.
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A gunman killed "a number" of people at a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday in Pennsylvania's bucolic Lancaster County, state police said.
The shooter was among the dead, and a number of people were injured, said state police Cpl. Ralph Striebig.
"There are a number of people dead," Striebig said. "The exact number I do not know yet."
Police surrounded the one-room school late Monday morning, and the Lancaster County 911 Web site reported that dozens of emergency units were dispatched to a "medical emergency" at 10:45 a.m.
Two hours later, about three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, hats and bonnets stood near the small school building speaking to one another, several young people and authorities. At least two ambulances had left the scene, and at least one person was taken on a stretcher to a medical helicopter.
Officials at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center confirmed that victims were being admitted there. A spokeswoman said the hospital anticipated more than one patient, but did not know how many.
AP Photos planned.
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URGENT
Coronor says 6 people shot to death at Amish school in Pennsylvania; Police say others injured
Eds: UPDATES with six dead. Will be led.
AP Photos planned.
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A gunman killed six people at a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday morning in Pennsylvania's bucolic Lancaster County, the county coroner said.
State police said several others were injured and taken to hospitals.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos planned.
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URGENT
Coronor says 6 people shot to death at Amish school in Pennsylvania; Police say others injured
Eds: UPDATES with six dead, 3 girls critical, others wounded. Will be led.
AP Photos planned.
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A gunman killed six people at a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday morning in Pennsylvania's bucolic Lancaster County, and several others were taken to hospitals with injuries, authorities said.
"So far, six confirmed dead, and the helicopters are pulling into (Lancaster General Hospital) like crazy," Coroner G. Gary Kirchner said.
It was unclear if the shooter was among the six. State Police Cpl. Ralph Striebig said earlier that the shooter was dead.
Three girls, all in critical condition with gunshot wounds, were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital, spokesman John Lines told WGAL-TV.
Officials at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center confirmed that victims also were being admitted there. A spokeswoman said the hospital anticipated more than one patient but did not know how many.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos planned.
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URGENT
Coronor says 6 people shot to death at Amish school in Pennsylvania; Police say others injured
Eds: ADDS background. Will be led.
AP Photos planned.
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A gunman killed six people at a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday morning in Pennsylvania's bucolic Lancaster County, and several others were taken to hospitals with injuries, authorities said.
"So far, six confirmed dead, and the helicopters are pulling into (Lancaster General Hospital) like crazy," Coroner G. Gary Kirchner said.
It was unclear if the shooter was among the six. State Police Cpl. Ralph Striebig said earlier that the shooter was dead.
Three girls, all in critical condition with gunshot wounds, were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital, spokesman John Lines told WGAL-TV. Officials at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center confirmed that victims also were being admitted there. A spokeswoman said the hospital anticipated more than one patient.
Police surrounded the one-room school in southeast Lancaster County late Monday morning, and the Lancaster County 911 Web site reported that dozens of emergency units were dispatched to a "medical emergency" at 10:45 a.m.
Three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, broad-brimmed hats and bonnets stood near the small school building, surrounded by a low white fence, speaking to one another and authorities. Others gathered with a group of children at a nearby farm while investigators stretched out in a line across a field searching for evidence.
The school is situated among farmlands just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos planned.
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URGENT
Coroner says 6 people shot to death at Amish school in Pa., at least 3 others critical
Eds: ADDS background. Will be led. AP Video.
AP Photos planned.
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – Six people were shot to death at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania's bucolic Lancaster County Monday, and at least three young girls were hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
"So far, six confirmed dead, and the helicopters are pulling into (Lancaster General Hospital) like crazy," Coroner G. Gary Kirchner said.
It wasn't immediately clear if the shooter was among the six. State Police Cpl. Ralph Striebig said earlier that the shooter was dead, but he released no details about that person or a possible motive.
Three girls, ages 6-12, were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds, spokesman John Lines said. Officials at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center confirmed that victims also were being admitted there.
Police late Monday morning surrounded the one-room schoolhouse, a tiny building surrounded by a white fence and farm fields in southeastern Lancaster County. The Lancaster County 911 Web site reported that dozens of emergency units were dispatched to a "medical emergency" at 10:45 a.m.
Hours after the attack, about three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, broad-brimmed hats and bonnets stood nearby speaking to one another and authorities. Others gathered with a group of children at a nearby farm while investigators stretched out in a line across a field searching for evidence.
The school is just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia.
It was the third small community to be shocked by a deadly school shootings in just the past week.
On Friday, a school principal was gunned down in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder in the killing. Just two days earlier, an adult gunman held six girls hostage in a school at Bailey, Colo., before killing a 16-year-old girl and then himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, claiming the lives of 15 people, including the two teenage gunmen. Last year, a 16-year-old shot seven people to death at a school on Minnesota's Red Lake Indian Reservation, then killed himself.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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URGENT
Coroner says 6 people shot to death at Amish school in Pa., at least 3 others critical
Eds: ADDS shooter name, details. Will be led. AP Video.
AP Photos
By MARK SCOLFORO
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A 32-year-old truck driver took more than a dozen students hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barred the doors with boards and fatally shot at least six people, authorities said.
The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts, had been in the school about 45 minutes before police got the call, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. Officers had to break windows to get into the school. By then, three young girls and the gunman were dead, he said.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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URGENT
Coroner says 6 people shot to death at Amish school in Pa., at least 3 others critical
Eds: ADDS shooter name, details. Will be led. AP Video.
AP Photos
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A 32-year-old truck driver took more than a dozen students hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barred the doors with boards and fatally shot at least six people, authorities said.
The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts, had been in the school about 45 minutes before police got the call, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. Officers had to break windows to get into the school. By then, three young girls and the gunman were dead, he said.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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URGENT
Milk truck driver kills at least 3 girls at Pa. Amish school after barricading them inside
Eds: CORRECTS to police say at least 4 dead, coronor backing off 6 dead. Will be led. AP Video.
AP Photos
By MARK SCOLFORO
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and shot several people, killing at least three of the girls and apparently himself, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and similar to an attack just days earlier at school in Colorado.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain. Police said they found four people, including the gunman, dead when they got inside.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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URGENT
Milk truck driver kills at least 3 girls at Pa. Amish school after barricading them inside
Eds: CORRECTS to police say at least 4 dead, coronor backing off 6 dead. Will be led. AP Video.
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By MARK SCOLFORO
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and shot several people, killing at least three of the girls and apparently himself, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and similar to an attack just days earlier at school in Colorado.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain. Police said they found four people, including the gunman, dead when they got inside.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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URGENT
Milk truck driver kills at least 3 girls at Pa. Amish school after barricading them inside
Eds: ADDS details from news conference. Will be led. AP Video.
AP Photos
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and killed at least three girls and apparently himself, authorities said.
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.
The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV, was inside for over half an hour and had barred the doors with 2x4s with the girls inside, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. By the time officers broke windows to get in, three girls and the gunman were dead, Miller said.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain. At least seven people were taken to hospitals, including at least three girls in critical condition with gunshot wounds.
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.
About 11 a.m., Roberts apparently called his wife from a cell phone, saying he was "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. "It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims."
Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Troopers heard gunfire in the building seconds later.
The school has about 25 to 30 students in all, ages 6 to 13.
"It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims," Miller said. He released no further details about that what the grudge Roberts mentioned could have involved.
The school is among farmlands just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia. Hours after the shootings, about three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, hats and bonnets stood near the small building, surrounded by a white board fence, as investigators walked in line through fields searching for evidence.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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BC-Amish School-Shooting, 11th Ld,0153
URGENT
Milk truck driver kills at least 3 girls at Pa. Amish school after barricading them inside
Eds: ADDS 3 new final grafs with comment from Colorado county where similar shooting occurred last week. Will be led. AP Video.
AP Photos
By MARK SCOLFORO
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and killed at least three girls and apparently himself, authorities said.
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.
The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV, was inside for over half an hour and had barred the doors with 2x4s with the girls inside, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. By the time officers broke windows to get in, three girls and the gunman were dead, Miller said.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain. At least seven people were taken to hospitals, including at least three girls in critical condition with gunshot wounds.
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.
About 11 a.m., Roberts apparently called his wife from a cell phone, saying he was "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. "It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims."
Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Troopers heard gunfire in the building seconds later.
The school has about 25 to 30 students in all, ages 6 to 13.
"It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims," Miller said. He released no further details about that what the grudge Roberts mentioned could have involved.
The school is among farmlands just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia. Hours after the shootings, about three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, hats and bonnets stood near the small building, surrounded by a white board fence, as investigators walked in line through fields searching for evidence.
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man took several girls hostage in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.
"On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community," he said.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
AP Graphic AMISH SCHOOL SHOOTING
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BC-Amish School-Shooting, 12th Ld-Writethru,0711
URGENT
Milk truck driver kills at least 3 girls at Pa. Amish school after barricading them inside
Eds: LEADS with 15 grafs to UPDATE with Miller saying victims shot execution style, edit to conform. Pick up 16th 'The shooting ...' Will be led. AP Video.
AP Photos
AP Graphic AMISH SCHOOL SHOOTING
By MARK SCOLFORO
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and killed at least three girls and apparently himself, authorities said.
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.
The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV, was inside for over half an hour and had barred the doors with 2x4s with the girls inside, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. By the time officers broke windows to get in, three girls and the gunman were dead, Miller said. Seven others were taken to hospitals, three in critical condition.
"It appears that when he began shooting these victims, the victims were shot execution style in the head," Miller said.
Roberts had 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 other women with infants before barring the doors with the girls inside, Miller said.
The girls were lined up along a blackboard, Miller said. "He had wire ties with him and flex ties, and he began to tie the girls' feet together," Miller said.
A teacher was able to call police around 10:30 a.m. and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.
About 11 a.m., Roberts apparently called his wife from a cell phone, saying he was "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. "It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims."
Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Troopers heard gunfire in the building seconds later.
The school has about 25 to 30 students in all, ages 6 to 13.
"It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims," Miller said. He released no further details about that what the grudge Roberts mentioned could have involved.
Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain about that number.
At least seven people were taken to hospitals, including at least three girls, ages 6-12, who were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds, spokesman John Lines said.
The small school, surrounded by a white board fence, sits among farmlands just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia.
Hours after the attack, about three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, broad-brimmed hats and bonnets stood near the small schoolhouse as investigators walked in a line through fields searching for evidence.
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man took several girls hostage in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.
"On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community," he said.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, claiming the lives of 15 people, including the two teenage gunmen. On Friday, a school principal was gunned down in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder in the killing.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: AMs.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying two guns and some kind of grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Seven other victims were taken to hospitals. Most were badly wounded; most had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and apparently had no particular grudge against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." He also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for a long-ago offense, according to Miller.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts dropped his children off at the school bus stop, then pulled up at the Amish school in his truck and walked in around 10 a.m. with a shotgun, an automatic handgun and several pieces of lumber. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barred the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes, made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard, and tied their feet together with wire ties and flexible plastic ties, Miller said.
A teacher called police around 10:30 a.m. and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. When they got inside, they found his body.
The names and ages of the dead were not immediately released.
Three girls – 13, 8 and 6 – were in critical condition at the Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey. The rest of the wounded were taken to other hospitals in Pennsylvania and Delaware; their condition was not immediately disclosed.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo. "On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community."
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
He said that belief is often stronger in rural, suburban and private schools.
"When you go to rural and private schools, the first obstacle you run into is the 'It can't happen here' mentality," he said. "People have the perception of we're not like whatever big city they're near."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: UPDATES details on doors barricaded with desks, quote from state police commissioner, CLARIFY it is not clear who made the 911 call, UPDATES with expert comment, Amish not talking with reporters. No pickup.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying two guns and some kind of grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Seven other victims were taken to hospitals. Most were badly wounded; most had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and apparently had no particular grudge against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." He also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for a long-ago offense, according to Miller.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts dropped his children off at the school bus stop, then pulled up at the Amish school in his truck and walked in around 10 a.m. with a shotgun, an automatic handgun and several pieces of lumber. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, two-by-sixes and piled-up desks, made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard, and tied their feet together with wire ties and flexible plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
The names and ages of the dead were not immediately released.
"Very, very traumatic situation. Some of my troopers, actually one of the girls died in the arms of one of our troopers," Miller said.
Three girls – 13, 8 and 6 – were in critical condition at the Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey. The rest of the wounded were taken to other hospitals in Pennsylvania and Delaware; their condition was not immediately disclosed.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo. "On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community."
William Pollack, an expert in school violence at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and a psychology professor at the Harvard Medical School, said the Pennsylvania attack probably wasn't a copycat crime. Instead, Roberts probably had a grudge against women or girls that had been building for months or years, and he was spurred to act by the Colorado shootings.
"Seeing someone else enact it, certainly that would open up the gates," Pollack said.
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
He said that belief is often stronger in rural, suburban and private schools.
"When you go to rural and private schools, the first obstacle you run into is the 'It can't happen here' mentality," he said. "People have the perception of we're not like whatever big city they're near."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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Eds: UPDATES details on doors barricaded with desks, quote from state police commissioner on Amish community, CLARIFY it is not clear who made the 911 call, UPDATES with expert comment, Amish not talking with reporters. No pickup.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying two guns and a grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Seven other victims were taken to hospitals. Most were badly wounded; most had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and apparently had nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for a long-ago offense, according to Miller.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts dropped his children off at the school bus stop, backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded a shotgun, an automatic handgun and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, two-by-sixes and piled-up desks, made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard, and tied their feet together with wire ties and flexible plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
The names and ages of the dead were not immediately released.
"Very, very traumatic situation. Some of my troopers, actually one of the girls died in the arms of one of our troopers," Miller said.
Three girls – 13, 8 and 6 – were in critical condition at the Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey. The rest of the wounded were taken to other hospitals in Pennsylvania and Delaware; their condition was not immediately disclosed.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo. "On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community."
William Pollack, an expert in school violence at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and a psychology professor at the Harvard Medical School, said the Pennsylvania attack probably wasn't a copycat crime. Instead, Roberts probably had a grudge against women or girls that had been building for months or years, and he was spurred to act by the Colorado shootings.
"Seeing someone else enact it, certainly that would open up the gates," Pollack said.
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
He said that belief is often stronger in rural, suburban and private schools.
"When you go to rural and private schools, the first obstacle you run into is the 'It can't happen here' mentality," he said. "People have the perception of we're not like whatever big city they're near."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00008304 DB: research–d–2006–4 Date: Mon Oct 2 18:13:03 2006
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Eds: INSERTS 1 graf after 22nd graf, 'No one ...' to UPDATE with statement from gunman's family.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying two guns and a grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Seven other victims were taken to hospitals. Most were badly wounded; most had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and apparently had nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts dropped his children off at the school bus stop, backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded a shotgun, an automatic handgun and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, two-by-sixes and piled-up desks, made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard, and tied their feet together with wire ties and flexible plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
The names and ages of the dead were not immediately released.
"Very, very traumatic situation. Some of my troopers, actually one of the girls died in the arms of one of our troopers," Miller said.
Three girls – 13, 8 and 6 – were in critical condition at the Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey. The rest of the wounded were taken to other hospitals in Pennsylvania and Delaware; their condition was not immediately disclosed.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo. "On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community."
William Pollack, an expert in school violence at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and a psychology professor at the Harvard Medical School, said the Pennsylvania attack probably wasn't a copycat crime. Instead, Roberts probably had a grudge against women or girls that had been building for months or years, and he was spurred to act by the Colorado shootings.
"Seeing someone else enact it, certainly that would open up the gates," Pollack said.
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
He said that belief is often stronger in rural, suburban and private schools.
"When you go to rural and private schools, the first obstacle you run into is the 'It can't happen here' mentality," he said. "People have the perception of we're not like whatever big city they're near."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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BC-Amish School-Shooting, 17th Ld,0552
URGENT
Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: UPDATES eight victims reported in critical condition, gunman carrying three guns and several other weapons.
AP Photos
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00008388 DB: research–d–2006–4 Date: Mon Oct 2 18:29:23 2006
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Eight other victims were critically wounded, state police said. Most of the victims had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag with about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
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URGENT
Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: CLARIFIES that police have no immediate evidence that victims were sexually assaulted, ADDS police saying gunman faced a drug test, lost a child nearly a decade ago.
AP Photos
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
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NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
Eight other victims were critically wounded, state police said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. Miller gave no details on what the grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties, made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard, and tied their feet together with wire ties and flexible plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.
"Very, very traumatic situation. Some of my troopers, actually one of the girls died in the arms of one of our troopers," Miller said.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo. "On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community."
William Pollack, an expert in school violence at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and a psychology professor at the Harvard Medical School, said the Pennsylvania attack probably wasn't a copycat crime. Instead, Roberts probably had a grudge against women or girls that had been building for months or years, and he was spurred to act by the Colorado shootings.
"Seeing someone else enact it, certainly that would open up the gates," Pollack said.
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
He said that belief is often stronger in rural, suburban and private schools.
"When you go to rural and private schools, the first obstacle you run into is the 'It-can't-happen-here' mentality," he said. "People have the perception of we're not like whatever big city they're near."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00008489 DB: research–d–2006–4 Date: Mon Oct 2 18:52:19 2006
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Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: ADDS quote from state police saying this was probably not a copycat crime. Tightens throughout.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
Eight other victims were critically wounded, state police said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.
Miller refused to say what that grudge was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties, made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard, and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.
Miller, though, said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00008606 DB: research–d–2006–4 Date: Mon Oct 2 19:14:21 2006
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Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: LEADS with 9 grafs to reflect dispute between hospital officials and state police on number of critically injured; PICKS UP 10th graf, 'Miller said ...'.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.
Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties; made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard; and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.
Miller, though, said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00008697 DB: research–d–2006–4 Date: Mon Oct 2 19:38:44 2006
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Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: SUBS graf 6 to CORRECT age.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.
At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.
Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties; made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard; and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.
Miller, though, said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc: 00008794 DB: research–d–2006–4 Date: Mon Oct 2 19:59:55 2006
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Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
Eds: SUBS lede, graf 4 to UPDATE with details about victims.
%photo(AP Photos%)
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide.
At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said. Two young students were killed, along with a female teacher's aide who was slightly older than the students, state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.
Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties; made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard; and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.
Miller, though, said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos PAMR106-108
AP Graphic AMISH SCHOOL SHOOTING
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Gunman kills 3, then self at 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania
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AP Graphic AMISH SCHOOL SHOOTING
By MARK SCOLFORO
Associated Press Writer
NICKEL MINES, Pa. (AP) – A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide.
At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said. Two young students were killed, along with a female teacher's aide who was slightly older than the students, state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.
Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.
Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.
From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.
Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.
Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.
As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched – the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.
Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.
The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.
Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.
The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.
According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.
He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties; made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard; and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.
The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.
Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.
Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.
No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.
A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."
The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.
"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.
Miller, though, said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."
On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.
The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.
Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.
In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.
There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.
Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.
"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
Associated Press Writer
AP Photos PAMR106-108
AP Graphic AMISH SCHOOL SHOOTING
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