NICKEL MINES, Pa.-
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.
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