At least six killed in Amish school shooting

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At least six killed in Amish school shooting
Gunman among dead, according to state police; others wounded
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• Deadly shooting at Amish school
Oct. 2: Officials say at least six people are dead following a shooting at an Amish school in rural Pennsylvania.
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BREAKING NEWS
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 37 minutes ago
NICKEL MINES, Pa. - At least six people were killed Monday in a shooting at a one-room Amish school, the county coroner said. The identities and ages of the victims were not immediately available.

"So far six confirmed dead and the helicopters are pulling into (Lancaster General Hospital) like crazy," Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner said.

The shooter was among the dead, state police Cpl. Ralph Striebig said. “There are also a number of wounded,” he added.

Three girls, all critical with gunshot wounds and ages 6 through 12, were admitted to Lancaster General Hospital, spokesman John Lines told NBC affiliate WGAL-TV.

WGAL-TV also reported that the shooter was an adult male who had entered the school in rural Lancaster County and started making threats.

Some people in the Amish community learned about the situation and contacted police, WGAL reported. Negotiations apparently then took place but at some point at least 10 shots were fired within the school, WGAL said. It appeared the shooter took his own life.

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.

Twenty-seven students are said to have attended the private school, which teaches first through eighth grades.

The school is situated among farmlands just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia.


At least 6 die in Pa. school shooting - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

Not superise there is other shooting school in Pa
 
Digusting and the Amish never did nothing to him in the first place. That is still no excuse.

The Amish are a very peaceful people. Now even the Amish are not immune from school shootings.

I pray and hope this is a one time thing for the Amish. It would have been better if none happened.

That is just plain sick and digusting. God be with the Amish and comfort the Amish during the difficult trying times ahead.
 
I second Heath .... I am pretty scared right now. The world is getting crazy lately. Tonite I am not sure if I want to go to the Food court of the Mall where the Deaf gathering is. Sigh. Been anxious lately.
 
Some LA school have electronic detector that where check all students before enter school and continue to install in other school right now. If students don't like electronic detector then relocate to San Bernardino or out of LA area.
 
Dino65 said:
I second Heath .... I am pretty scared right now. The world is getting crazy lately. Tonite I am not sure if I want to go to the Food court of the Mall where the Deaf gathering is. Sigh. Been anxious lately.
Click to expand...

In Israel, the shopping mall has Israeli security guards that actually checks each and everybody at the entrance to prevent Palestinians from doing Shahid. I wish they had the security checkpoints at the entrance of the D.C. mall and I have been to Washington DC before and I know where the food court of the mall with a movie cinema is. It is in the Amtrak train depot. I just wish the homeless people that beg for money or shook themselves violently like they are demon possessed and shout at the world then laugh maniacally like they are on drugs would go somewhere else. That really isn't appropriate. The food court / shopping mall is really for the families and university students as well as for Amtrak train passengers too.
 
Crazy world!! Never thought shooting would happen to Amish people. Looks like the world is going down to hell in a handbasket...
 
yeah i like them amish people why do people have to shoot them what is the hell s the matter with those people who does teh shooting? man this is an nutty world that s for sure i actually like amish people
 
Fatal shooting at US Amish school

A gunman has shot dead four girls and injured several others before killing himself in an attack on an Amish school in the US state of Pennsylvania.
The gunman entered the class and ordered all the boys and some adults to leave. He then tied up the girls and began shooting them in the head.

Police named the killer as 32-year-old truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV. He is not Amish himself.

The attack is the third shooting at a US school in the past week.

In the latest shooting, the gunman was said to be heavily armed and seemed prepared for a long siege.

He lined up the girls in front of the blackboard, tying their feet using wire or plastic cuffs.

"It appears that when he began shooting these victims, the victims were shot execution style in the head," said Pennsylvania police commissioner Col Jeffrey Miller.

The attack happened at a one-room school for Amish children aged six to 13 in the village of Paradise near Nickel Mines in Lancaster County.

The Amish are the Anabaptist Christian descendants of German settlers who reject many types of modern technology in their effort to lead a life true to holy scriptures.

They restrict the use of cars, telephones and television to varying degrees.

Col Jeffrey B Miller said the gunman entered Georgetown School in the morning, armed with an automatic handgun and shotgun.

He told the boys to leave, along with a pregnant woman and three women who had young infants with them.

He then tied up the girls and barricaded the doors with large pieces of wood.

Police arrived at the scene at about 1045 (1445 GMT) and set up a cordon around the school, Col Miller said.

The officers tried hailing the gunman on their car loudspeakers, but were unable to make contact, he said.

The Associated Press news agency quotes Col Miller as saying a person who visited the school passed on a warning from the gunman that he would open fire unless the police withdrew.

As the message was going through shots fired in rapid succession were heard, Col Miller said.

Police stormed the building, breaking the windows to enter. But by the time they got there three girls and the gunman were dead. A fourth girl later died in hospital.

Seven people were found injured, at least three of whom were shot in the head.

'Normal behaviour'

Roberts was a local milk tanker driver who often picked up milk from Amish farms in the area.

A father of three, he had worked his night shift as usual on Sunday night, finishing at 0300 on Monday.

His wife said he had seemed perfectly normal as he walked his children to the school bus at 0845, as he did every day.

However, when his wife returned to the family home around mid-morning she discovered suicide notes that he had written to each of his children.

The police said there were indications that he was motivated by an incident that happened some 20 years ago.

It is not thought that Roberts had anything against the Amish community but chose the school because it was close by and had young girls.

In a separate incident, two Las Vegas schools, one high school and one elementary school, were temporarily locked down while police hunted for a teenager spotted carrying a gun on the high school campus.

These latest incidents come at the end of a week of gun-related violence in US schools.

Last Wednesday a 16-year-old girl died when an armed man, who also killed himself, took six students hostage at a Colorado high school.

And on Friday, a head teacher at a high school in Wisconsin was killed when he confronted an armed 15-year-old student as he entered the school.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Fatal shooting at US Amish school
 
Who are the Amish?

On the surface, many Amish look like they stepped out of the rural 19th Century.
The most conservative, Old Order groups of these reclusive, religious people drive horses and buggies rather than cars. Many have no telephones or electricity in their homes.

They send their children to private, one-room schoolhouses until the age of 13.

They eschew technology and preach isolation from the modern world. They do not join the military or accept assistance from the government.

The Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was a model for the 1985 film Witness starring Harrison Ford, a thriller which contrasted the violent modern world with their peaceful existence.

The Amish experience many of the same problems as other communities, but keep them private.

Strict regulations

Some 200,000 Amish people live in more than 20 US states and in the Canadian province of Ontario.

The oldest group of Old Order Amish, about 16,000-18,000 people, live in Lancaster County, a rural, farming area where Amish first settled in the 1720s - many fleeing religious persecution in Europe.

The Amish are divided into dozens of separate fellowships, broken down into districts or congregations. Each district is fully independent and lives by its own set of unwritten rules, or Ordnung.

The Old Order are the most conservative of these groups, and observe strict regulations on dress, behaviour, and the use of technology, which they believe encourages humility and separation from the world.

Old Order Amish women wear modest dresses with long sleeves and a full skirt, a cape and an apron. They never cut their hair, but wear it in a bun on the back of the head.

Men and boys wear dark-coloured suits, straight-cut coats and black or straw broad-brimmed hats. They grow beards only after they marry.

Modern technology is not rejected out of hand. Some farms have telephones and local groups can allow electricity to be used in certain circumstances.

Most Amish are trilingual. They speak a dialect of German called Pennsylvania Dutch at home, use High German at their worship services, and they learn English at school.

In some ways, the Amish are feeling the pressures of the modern world. Commentators say child labour laws, for example, are threatening long-established ways of life.

While many Amish own firearms, used to hunt and kill wild animals, their communities have until now been largely free of violent gun crime.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Who are the Amish?
 
Man storms Amish school, kills 3, self

NICKEL MINES, Pa. - A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood 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 people before committing suicide.

At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.

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.

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. Two young students were killed, along with a female teacher's aide who was slightly older than the students, state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller 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," Miller said.

The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-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" when he was a boy, Miller said.

Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt 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.

The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., but Miller said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime. "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head," he said.

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 of 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.

Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.

As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched — the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.

Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.

The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.

Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.

The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.

According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.

He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties; made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard; and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.

The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.

Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.

Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.

Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.

No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.

A family spokesman, Dwight Lefever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."

The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.

"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.

Miller, though, said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."

On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.

The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.

Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.

In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.

There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.

Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.

"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."

4 dead in Amish school shooting in Pa. - Yahoo! News
 
He let the boys go, then tied up the girls and shot them one by one

A gunman opened fire in a tiny, one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania yesterday, killing three young girls and wounding at least seven others, several critically, before shooting himself dead.

Charles Roberts, 32, a lorry driver, burst into the wooden building in rural Lancaster County shortly before 10.30, armed with a shotgun and an automatic handgun.

He separated the male from the female pupils and lined the girls up against the blackboard and shot them execution-style in the head. At 11am he called his wife on his mobile phone and said he was "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," police said.

"It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims," said Col Jeffrey Miller, the commissioner of Pennsylvania State Police.

He said the killings were premeditated and carefully planned. He did not say what the incident was from Roberts's past that apparently provoked the attack.

Col Miller said that Roberts had finished work as a milk delivery driver at 3am and had taken his three children to the bus stop for their journey to school at around 8.45am. At 11am he called his wife from the school and said "he was not coming home".

"He left notes for her and the children," Col Miller said. "He told her he loved her and that was it." Roberts entered the school in the village of Nickel Mines, 55 miles west of Philadelphia, and ordered the 15 boys there to leave.

He also freed teachers at the school, including a pregnant woman who ran across fields to raise the alarm. She told the police that between 10 and 12 girls aged from six to 13 were in class. Roberts, who lived within walking distance, barricaded himself and the children inside the building, placing sheets of wood he had brought with him in a pick-up truck and desks against the door.

Police were on the scene within nine minutes. They surrounded the building and sealed off the village and tried to establish contact using the loud speakers in their cars. Roberts told them that if they did not leave in 10 seconds he would "start shooting people." Police negotiators tried to call him on his mobile as officers prepared to storm the building but at that moment the shooting began.

The shots were fired "in quick succession", Col Miller said. He added that ballistics tests were expected to confirm that the murders were carried out using the handgun.

As the first shots were fired, officers had to break in through windows because of the barricades.

"They found the suspect dead on the floor," Col Miller said. "Three other students between the age of six and 13 had been killed." He said that when Roberts, a non-Amish, first entered the school he apparently showed the handgun to the children and was "having some discussion in the class". "He told the kids to line up in front of the blackboard. Then, using wire ties and flex cuffs, he began to tie the females' feet together. It appears that when he shot them he shot them execution-style in the head. Some were also shot in the arms. One of the children died in the arms of one of our troopers."

Footage from television cameras showed a large pool of blood across the schoolhouse entrance.

Members of the reclusive and highly religious Amish community formed nervous knots outside the school as they waited to discover the identity of the victims.

The peaceful community, which numbers about 30,000 in Lancaster County, shuns such modern trappings as electricity and telephones and has no police force. It still uses horse-drawn carriages and the women wear traditional dress of long skirts and bonnets. The men wear distinctive, wide-brimmed hats.

Col Miller described the shooting as "a horrendous, horrific incident".

"The Amish community are good people," he said. "They don't deserve this."

American schools have been on high alert after deadly shootings last week at schools in Wisconsin and Colorado.

On Friday a school principal was gunned down in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, and a 15-year-old student, who was said to be upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder. Two days earlier, an adult gunman held six girls hostage in a school at Bailey, Colorado, before killing a 16-year-old girl then himself."

Telegraph | News | He let the boys go, then tied up the girls and shot them one by one
 
'We have a gunman. He has some children'

News of the horror at the Amish school in Nickel Mines reached the outside world yesterday with an emergency call from a terrified teacher at 10.36am. "We have a gunman," she told operators. "He's taken some children."

Within half an hour armed state troopers arrived at the simple wooden schoolhouse in the tiny village in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

They found huddles of traumatised members of the Amish community, who managed to relay the vital information: the gunman was still in the building, holding about a dozen children with him.

As armed officers took up positions in front of the school, a negotiator began talking through a loudhailer.

The gunman then telephoned 911, America's emergency service, and told an operator that if the troopers did not withdraw, he would begin shooting children in 10 seconds. His mobile number was traced instantly and the number passed on to armed officers at the scene.

"We tried to call the number and then heard multiple shots in quick succession," said Jeffrey B Miller, the Pennsylvania police commissioner, at a press conference later.

Charles Carl Roberts IV was carrying an automatic handgun and a shotgun.

"We believe he used the automatic weapon," said Miller, trying hard to control his emotions.

Officers surrounded the school and tried to storm through the doors, only to find that each was blocked. They knocked through the windows to discover a scene officers described simply as "horrendous".

The gunman and three girls aged between six and 13 were dead. They had been shot in the head, as had some of the seven other girls badly injured. They had all had their feet bound.

"He apparently executed them," said Mr Miller.

It is not clear what time Roberts arrived at the school but he had come prepared. He was not Amish, but was known to the community as he delivered their milk regularly from a tanker truck.

But yesterday he arrived in a pick-up truck belonging to a friend or relative, on to which he had loaded his weapons, some kind of material to bind the childrens' limbs and planks to bar the school doors.

When he entered the school, he displayed his weapons and divided the boys and girls.

He allowed 15 boys, also aged between six and 13, to go, along with a pregnant teacher and three other adults, believed to be teachers or assistants, with infant children. One of the teachers rang the police.

Roberts had left home that morning as usual. His wife had thought everything "was normal", said Mr Miller.

He took their three children to the bus stop for the school bus at 8.45, at what was the end of his working day. His wife returned home later to find suicide notes written to their children.

"She called her husband and he said he wasn't coming home, and said he had left the notes for her and the children. He said he loved her, and then the shooting started," said Mr Miller. The only hint of motivation in the letters, described as "rambling", was revenge for something that happened 20 years ago.

"The school was an opportunity to attack where there were young kids.

"It seems as if he wanted to attack young female victims. That's the only reason we can figure [for this]," continued the police commissioner.

"He lives nearby and added to that, it's not secure like other schools would be."

He said that Roberts had not come to the attention of the police before.

Telegraph | News | 'We have a gunman. He has some children'
 
Fourth girl dies after Amish school shooting

PARADISE, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A heavily armed truck driver who was prepared for a long standoff barricaded himself in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, killing four girls execution-style before killing himself, police said.

Seven other girls were bound and critically wounded in the attack, which police said appeared to be a revenge killing for an unspecified incident that occurred when the gunman was a boy.

The attack was the nation's third deadly school shooting in a week. (Watch what happened in schoolhouse, community's reaction -- 2:21 )

The gunman, 32-year-old 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 siege.

"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. (Watch commissioner's dramatic account of shootings -- 7:44 )

"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. Three students and an aide were killed, one of them dying in a trooper's arms, Miller said. One of the girls died while hospitalized hours after the shooting.

The wounded girls were taken to several hospitals in the region, 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. (Read Miller's remarks)

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 planned this out meticulously," the commissioner said.

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.

A White House spokesperson said the president was "deeply saddened and troubled by the recent school violence" and that the administration would convene a conference on the subject next week. (Full story)

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. (Full story)

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. (Full story)

CNN.com - Fourth girl dies after Amish school shooting - Oct 2, 2006
 
VamPyroX said:
Wow... not even the Amish people are safe! :eek:
Click to expand...

Yeah, its crazy...but this guy would have found any 'easy' target given the opportunity, whether it was an Amish schoolhouse or a daycare in the city.

One thing I feel really bad about is very recently I was in PA with some Amish folks. Got a very nice view of the countryside (not far from where this shooting occurred). I had a lengthy conversation with the Amish man who was giving me a ride. We were exchanging stories and he said "We'll never have the problems that you folk have in the big city".

ourbuggy.jpg


pennyscaboose.jpg
 
Amish Killer May Have Sought Revenge

As Pennsylvania state police continue to investigate why gunman Charles Carl Roberts entered a rural primary school in Pennsylvania's Amish Country on Monday shooting 11 girls and killing five of them, plus himself, the killer's wife described her husband as "loving, supportive and thoughtful – all the things you'd always want and more."

In a statement read by family spokesman Dwight LeFever, Marie Roberts said: "The man that did this today was not the Charlie I've been married to for almost 10 years. … He was an exceptional father. He took the kids to soccer practice and games, played ball in the backyard and took our 7-year-old daughter shopping. He never said no when I asked him to change a diaper.

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

Authorities are examining suicide notes and believe Roberts, a 32-year-old milk tanker driver and father of three who himself was not Amish, may have acted out of revenge for an event 20 years ago. Police are not yet sure what that incident was but hope to have a clue soon, Pennsylvania state police commissioner Jeffrey Miller said on Tuesday morning's Today show.

They are also looking at whether the death of an infant daughter nine years ago may have played a role in the attack, Miller told reporters at a news conference Monday.

Armed with guns, knives and 600 rounds of ammunition, Roberts showed up at 10 a.m., after completing his milk route and then carried out his massacre, said Miller. At some point, he called his wife on his cellphone and spoke of a long-ago grudge he intended to even out.

"It is clear to us that he did a great deal of planning, just from the list of materials I just laid out," said Miller. "It appears as though he intended to prepare for a lengthy siege."

Miller added: "He came here prepared. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing. It appears he did a lot of time in planning and intended to harm these kids and intended to harm himself."

According to the Lancaster (Penn.) Intelligencer Journal newspaper, Roberts was the son of a policeman and was home-schooled. He and his wife married Nov. 9, 1996, and had a daughter about a year later, only the child died shortly after birth.

"He was an excellent family man," his sobbing mother, Teresa Roberts, said outside her home, reports the paper. "I had no idea anything like this was going to happen."

Based on the rambling suicide notes to his three children, ages 1 to 7, and phone calls, it was apparent Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said at the press conference.

Amish Killer May Have Sought Revenge : People.com
 
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