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Shooting in German School

A 20-year-old former student at the Scholl secondary school in Emsdetten, northern Germany, entered the school masked, strapped with explosives and armed with a machine gun. The former student opened fire on teachers and students wounding eight. The assailant set off a series of explosions while holding brief negotiations under police siege. Upon entering the police found the extremely mutilated body of the former student which was known to the police.

"He was an absolute loner," said 17-year-old student, Katja Weber adding that "Guns were his hobby." The student was known for always wearing a black hat and coat. The state prosecutor, Wolfgang Schweer, he was facing trial on weapons charges. Schweer said the assailant left a suicide note that indicating his motive: He seems to have been frustrated by a lack of meaning in his life," Schweer believes he worked alone telling reportes: "We have no reason to think he had contact with any extremist groups. It appears that he was a loner who decided on his own to do this."

The attack follows a series of attacks on German schools in recent years. In 1999, a 15-year-old student stabbed his teacher 21 times on a dare from his friends. In 2000, a 16-year-old pupil at a boarding school in Branneburg shoot his teacher and himself. He still remains in a coma. In 2002, a former student killed 16 people and himself in a school in Erfurt, eastern Germany. Earlier that year, a student expelled from a technical school in Freising, killed three people before turning his gun on himself.