Milk Man Kills Girls At PA. Amish School
Milk man kills girls at Pa. Amish school
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/4230205.html
(Gold9472: Sad. How many people know what the Amish are?)
By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press Writer
10/2/2006
NIC/KEL MINES, Pa. — 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.
