WINNENDEN, Germany — A 17-year-old wielding a Beretta 9mm pistol burst into classrooms at his former high school Wednesday and gunned down students — some of whom died with their pencils still in hand — in a rampage that ended with 15 dead before he took his own life, authorities said.
There was no immediate indication of motive, but the gunman’s victims were primarily female: eight of nine students killed were girls, and all three teachers were women. Three men were killed later as the gunman fled the Albertville school. The gunman was identified by police as Tim K.
“I heard two shots and then screaming,” said a 15-year-old student who gave her name only as Betty. “At first I thought it was a joke, but then someone called ‘Run, run!’ and I saw students jumping out of the windows and took off running.”
The gunman — dressed in all black — took students in the first classroom completely by surprise, said regional police director Ralf Michelfelder.
“Children were sitting at their tables, with pencils still in their hands, their heads fallen over on the table,” he said. “Most of them had shots in their head — it must have all happened in seconds.”
The teen apparently took the gun from his father’s collection.
Police said the assailant was a German teen who was a below-average student at the school of about 1,000 pupils but managed to graduate last year. His sister attends the school.
Police received an emergency call from the school at 9:33 a.m. The first officers to respond heard shots on the second floor and ran upstairs, catching a glimpse of the gunman on a staircase.
He fired a shot at the police and then fled, killing two teachers on his way out, Rech said.
The gunman ran into downtown Winnenden, a town of 28,000, where he shot two people walking by a psychiatric clinic, killing one and wounding the other, police said.
The gunman then hijacked a car and fled to Wendlingen, about 24 miles from Winnenden. The driver escaped.
He entered a car dealership, where he shot and killed a salesman and a customer and then went back outside.
He opened fire on police swarming the area, who shot back and wounded him. But he reloaded his weapon and fled into what turned out to be a dead-end street. Police found him there dead, after he apparently shot himself in the head.
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