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   At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting

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Topic: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting (Read 949 times)

Rhune
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At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 12:15pm »

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Coroner: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
POSTED: 1:13 p.m. EDT, October 2, 2006

NICKEL MINES, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A county coroner said Monday that at least six people were killed in a shooting at an Amish school in Pennsylvania.

Police earlier had said a gunman killed "a number" of people and that the shooter was among the dead.

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.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

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Pocket
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #1 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 12:30pm »

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Let one nut start killing kids in a school, and more nuts come out of the woodwork and do the same. What do we have to do, fence in all the schools and place guard towers to protect our kids? These particular kids were even more vulnerable than other schools. It's sickening!

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AmberJ
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #2 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 12:30pm »

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this is kind of deja vu to 7-8 years ago. There were quite a few school shootings and then Columbine occured...

I really would like to understand why people feel the need to shoot other people, not that I am ever going to understand something so cold.

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Rhune
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #3 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 12:33pm »

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It's interesting (in a horrible way), that this would infect Amish schools, since their community is so largely isolated from ours. Granted most do their coming of adulthood where they leave the fold temporarily, but most rarely go past the small towns on the outskirts of where they lived. I guess I can see where this might happen. I don't know how many of you watched the tv show "Amish in the City", but I found it really fascinating. When I saw this I immediately thought of Mose (not as the shooter). His situation was one where he was not allowed his coming of age by his parents and he said he was forcibly baptised as an adult in their church so he could be made to teach in their school. He talked about how the Amish belief was that once you had been baptised as an adult, you would go to hell if you died outside the Amish lands. He also talked several times about how his mother was not affectionate and very dismissive of how he felt. I think it just underscores that in all societies, there are going to be bullies and people who feel picked on, and that some of them may snap.

« Last Edit: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 12:44pm by Rhune »

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Rhune
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #4 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 12:45pm »

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They trigger each other. It's like copy-cat murders. They get so much noise in the press and I think some of these people who are close to doing something like this get fired up by all the media and see it as glory.

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Julia
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #5 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 4:34pm »

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on Oct 2^nd, 2006, 3:59pm, TAR 4 life wrote:

Ya know, you never hear about anything like this outside the U.S.

only in America Roll Eyes

In 1989 Marc Lepine opened fire in at Polytechnique in Montreal and killed 14 female engineering students.... (just google Montreal Massacre and you can read more)

In 1992 there was a massacre at Concordia University, 4 or 5 professors were killed

In 1999 there was a shooting in a high school in Taber, Alberta killing one

and recently in 2006 there was a shooting at Dawson College in Montreal..

wow, I just realized that three of the four shootings mentioned were in Montreal...

Its not unique to the US, unfortunately its becoming all too familiar...

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Rhune
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #6 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 6:44pm »

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The most recent rash of school shootings started with one in Canada. They are more frequent in the US, but they do happen elsewhere as well.

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Rhune
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #7 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 6:45pm »

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Truck driver kills three girls in Amish school shooting
POSTED: 7:34 p.m. EDT, October 2, 2006

PARADISE, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A 32-year-old truck driver walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, binding and shooting three girls execution-style before killing himself, police said.

Eight other girls were wounded in the attack, which police said appeared to be a revenge killing for an incident that occurred two decades ago.

"It would take a miracle for us to not lose more lives today," said Commissioner Jeffrey Miller of the Pennsylvania State Police, adding that the wounded were in critical condition -- two of them "very dire."

The attack was the nation's third deadly school shooting in a week.

The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, was armed with three guns, a stun gun, two knives and a bag holding 600 rounds of ammunition, Miller said.

He was also carrying an assortment of tools and other items, including toilet paper, that led police to believe he was prepared for an extended standoff.

"It seems as though he wanted to attack young female victims, and this is close to his residence. That's the only reason we can figure that he went to the school," said Miller.

"It's a horrendous crime scene," he said.

The shooting took place in Lancaster County, about 60 miles west of Philadelphia, at a school run by the Amish community. There were 26 students in the school Monday, 11 of them girls.

The school teaches students ranging from 6 to 13, with some older students working as teachers' aides. Two students and an aide were dead at the scene, with one girl dying in a state trooper's arms, Miller said.

The wounded girls were taken to several hospitals in the central Pennsylvania area, some of them with gunshot wounds to the head.

Roberts drove a commercial milk truck, said Miller. He was not Amish, was not previously wanted by authorities and had no known criminal history.

The Bart, Pennsylvania, resident had three children, and left several notes for his family "along the lines of suicide notes," Miller said.

The notes were "rambling" and "didn't make much sense," Miller said.

Roberts did not respond when police at the scene attempted to communicate with him, and troopers were preparing to storm the schoolhouse before the shooting began, Miller said.

Roberts' wife tried to call him when she found the notes, Miller said. He returned the call on his cell phone, told her he wouldn't be coming home and "that he was acting out to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago."

The suspect called 911 and "made a declaration that if the state police didn't leave the property he would start shooting people within 10 seconds."

"Within seconds, he just started firing in rapid succession."

Police then stormed the schoolhouse through the windows and found Roberts dead, Miller said. He had fired at least one shotgun blast at police.

Gunman let boys go
The commissioner said Roberts had worked a shift that ended about 3 a.m. Monday and taken his children to their bus stop before beginning his rampage.

Police said he had barricaded himself in the schoolhouse with two-by-four and two-by-six pieces of lumber, which he brought to the scene in a borrowed pickup truck.

"He did a great deal of planning," Miller said. "It appears that he intended to be prepared for a lengthy siege."

Miller said that during the attack, Roberts apparently told students to line up in front of the blackboard. He began to tie his female captives' feet together. He let the 15 boys in the classroom leave.

Miller said Roberts also allowed an adult female who was pregnant to leave with three other adult females who had infant children with them.

The teacher who was released was able to alert authorities, Miller said.

"Apparently, there was some sort of an issue in his past that for some reason, he wanted to exact revenge against female victims. That's all I can tell you right now," Miller said.

Miller said Roberts' grudge did not appear to involve the Amish community and that he may have chosen his target out of convenience, perhaps thinking "getting into a school like this was maybe just a little bit easier."

A man who said he was a friend of the Roberts family, Dwight Lefever, read a statement attributed to the gunman's wife, Marie Roberts, according to CNN affiliate WGAL.

"The man that did this today was not the Charlie I've been married to for almost 10 years. My husband was loving, supportive, thoughtful. All the things you'd always want and more. He was an exceptional father," the statement said.

"Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocents and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray. Pray for the families who lost children today, and please pray, too, for our family and children."

Lancaster County's 911 Web site reported dozens of emergency vehicles -- including at least nine ambulances -- were dispatched to Bart Township shortly before 11 a.m. for a "medical emergency." The Lancaster County emergency communications Web site showed 20 incident calls listed to the normally quiet Bart Township at 10:48 a.m.

Shortly after the attack, men, women and girls in traditional Amish clothing gathered in small groups outside the country schoolhouse along a dirt road. Horse-drawn carriages could be seen in a nearby parking lot.

The school is one of about 150 that serve the Amish population of about 200,000, said Donald Kraybill, a sociology professor at nearby Elizabethtown College.

"They typically are one-room facilities operated by Amish parents," Kraybill said. "There usually are not any security concerns or security risks in the schools, so this is quite a shock."

Aaron Meyer, who owns a buggy company in the nearby village of Bird in Hand, said the largely rural Amish country had experienced nothing like the crime in the 25 years he has lived in the area.

"Many of these townships there have no police at all, because there's no crime," Meyer told CNN.

On Wednesday, a 53-year-old man entered a high school in Bailey, Colorado, where he held several female students hostage at gunpoint. He shot one girl before killing himself seconds after a SWAT team stormed the classroom.

A high school student near Madison, Wisconsin, is suspected of fatally gunning down his principal on Friday, after he complained about being bullied and was disciplined for carrying tobacco.

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Rhune
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #8 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 7:01pm »

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Out of curiosity, I went to look and see what other countries have seen this happen in recent years, and found that since the year 2000, there have been school shootings in the US, Canada, Germany, Venzuela, The Netherlands, Sweeden, Bosnia, Russia, Japan, Australia and Argentina. Certainly there have been more in the US when you look at it overall, but the US is also a much bigger country than most of those too, more opportunity for it to happen.

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Tyler
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #9 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 7:02pm »

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Third school shooting in less then a week..

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Tyler
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #10 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 7:17pm »

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on Oct 2^nd, 2006, 6:15pm, TAR 4 life wrote:

(i'm going to be rude in this post, so PLEASE do not take it personally)

those were four incidents in 17 years.

This one, the thing in Colorado a few days ago, Columbine, the one in Wisconsin about a week ago.....the list continues.

those were four over 9 years.

Yeah, and 3 in 5 days. almsost 4...a student in a school near us was caught with a gun before it even happened.

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bec
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #11 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 8:00pm »

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REGARDLESS OF WHERE IN THE WORLD THESE ACTS OF VIOLENCE OCCUR THE FACT THEY'RE HAPPENING AT ALL IS HORRIFIC.

SADLY IT IS HERE IN AUSTRALIA THAT THE WORLDS WORST MASS MURDER BY A LONE GUNMAN OCCURRED, IN 1996 MARTIN BRYANT WENT ON A RAMPAGE AT PORT ARTHUR IN TASMANIA KILLING 35 AND INJURING DOZENS MORE. MARTIN BRYANT COMMITTED SUCIDE A FEW YEARS AGO IN PRISON.....THE COWARD!

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Julia
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #12 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 8:12pm »

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wow bec, I never knew that Sad

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Pocket
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #13 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 9:20pm »

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Some years ago, not sure how long it was, a gunman entered a kindergarten or 1st grade class in a small town in GB and killed several.

Unfortunately, we'll have to institute heavier than normal security at schools to prevent more copycats.

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AmberJ
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Re: At least 6 dead in Amish school shooting
« Reply #14 on: Oct 2^nd, 2006, 10:07pm »

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there was also the hostage situation in Russia last year or two years ago.

It's disgusting that anyone can be so cruel to such innocent souls.

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