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Germany begins investigation into school shooting
12.03.09
Police in Germany have begun an investigation into why a 17-year-old gunman went on the rampage killing 16 people at a high school.
Timothy Kretschmer, who wore a black combat uniform and a gas mask, carried out the murders before he was shot dead by police.
The killer took particular interest in one of the classrooms, room 10D. He went in and out of the room three times, asking the last time: “Are you all dead yet?”
A massive manhunt was launched after the Kretschmer, who graduated from the Albertville school in Winnenden near Stuttgart two years ago, fled the scene of the school massacre by hijacking a car, holding the driver at gunpoint.
Three hours later the teenager was chased to the car park of a shopping centre in the nearby town of Weiblingen where he was shot dead. Two passers-by were killed in the shoot-out.
Kretschmer was said to have been killed by a member of SEK, the German special forces team. Police said the teenager was wearing a black SEK uniform.
The bloodbath began at the school shortly after 9.30am yesterday.
Nine pupils — all aged 14 and 15 — and three teachers were killed as well as a gardener at the psychiatric hospital opposite the building. A tenth student, a girl, died in hospital this afternoon from serious wounds.
Pupils who escaped said the teachers had died trying to shield them. Kretschmer, who was “known” to police through a long history of troublemaking, used a rifle from his father's collection of 18 hunting guns in the shootings.
He escaped from the school on foot before hijacking a black VW Sharan, holding the driver at gunpoint and screaming “get me out of town”.
Shortly afterwards, they were on the motorway heading to Stuttgart, 12 miles away, and at some point the gunman released his hostage and drove off.
Meanwhile, a fleet of ambulances raced to the school as 1,000 officers, two helicopters and armed SEK units pursued the gunman. Parts of Winnenden were sealed off with armed police manning checkpoints. But he still managed to flee to Weiblingen where he was shot dead at 12.31pm local time.
The killing spree took place in two classrooms and a corridor. Police spoke of the school “running with blood” and appealed to local people to donate blood for transfusions for the dozens of injured, who included two policemen. Many had ricochet gunshot wounds.
The gunman is believed not to have uttered a word during the massacre.
Police stormed the killer's home in the nearby village of Leutenbach soon after and took his mother into custody for questioning. It was reported that his father is a wealthy businessman.
“He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath,” said regional police chief Erwin Hetger. “I've never seen anything like this in my life.”
Psychologists were brought in by local authorities to help the survivors who stumbled, many of them in tears, through the school gates.
They were taken to a swimming pool where distraught parents arrived in droves. About 1,000 children attend the school in the town of 28,000.
Witnesses said students jumped from the windows of the building after the gunman opened fire, screaming: “He's killing everyone!”
The chief reporter of the Stuttgart Journal newspaper, Kevin Latzel, said there was a lot of confusion.
In the immediate aftermath, he said: “It is very horrible... the parents are crying, the pupils are crying and a lot of police are there and nobody knows really what happened.
“They are very afraid, the pupils are calling their parents and the parents they want to pick [them] up but they can't do this, the parents they are not allowed to get into the classrooms.”
A German government spokesman in Berlin said he was “deeply shocked” by the massacre. Police said the gunman opened fired at pupils indiscriminately.
The school, attended by students aged from 10 to 16, was evacuated as rescue workers and fire fighters were scrambled to the scene. Local television pictures showed dozens of heavily-armed black-clad SWAT teams entering the two-storey white school building.
Immediately following the shootings, police warned residents not to pick up anyone in their cars as they searched for the suspect.
One female pupil at the school told a German TV news programme that the killer “was always a weirdo, obsessed with death metal music and guns. He never had a girlfriend.
“There was some trouble at the school one time over his bullying. He was an angry guy, a loner. He hated the world. No one was sorry to see the back of him when he left.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the shooting as “incomprehensible”. She said: “It is unimaginable that in just seconds, pupils and teachers were killed. It is an appalling crime. Our feelings are with these victims and their families at this difficult time.”
She added: “This is a day of mourning for the whole of Germany.”
Germany has strict weapons laws, with gunholders having to fulfil certain criteria on age and weapons expertise to obtain a licence for firearms.
The shooting follows a number of similar tragedies in Germany.
In February 2002, a 22-year-old gunman killed the headmaster and seriously injured another person in a vocational training centre he attended at Freising, near Munich.
Reader views (9)
and if Germany has strict gun laws how come a 17 year old got his hands on one so easily?
- Cath, London
Over the last few years these incidents although few, seem to be spreading around the world.
What is causing our kids to act in this way, generally Germany seems to be a stricter country than the USA or UK so it can not be simply a lack of discipline.
Is it maybe that the effects of instant global news is spreading these ideas world wide and neurotic disgruntled teenagers will take 'copy cat' "solutions" to their problems?
- Rosie, London uk
Very sad.
I don't think you'll ever be able to stop the odd person like this slipping through the net, but you can reduce their access to weapons.
Europe should get together and sort out the laws so that its a lot more difficult to get hold of guns, and the punishment for possession should be tougher.
- Dylan, London
We don't know all the facts here but there is a trend of young men doing this as opposed to young women. There is a pattern and I think its quite simply the pressure to conform and succeed. The alienation, the psychopathic killing then suicide or fatal shootout. I own plenty of guns but educate my sons and daughters about their correct use, no weapons glorification just respect. They are also secured in a way that the keys location isn't even known by my wife. Ammunition is securely separately stored. This alone could have prevented this terrible tragedy. Very sad. The UK gun ban has seen gun crime rocket, so before the banners jump up and down, they do not work! Every day we read of a gun killing in the UK, the figures are shocking so no usual UK smugness here please.
- James Macleod Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove
::Rolls Eyes:: Lets Blame the music, Scapegoat anybody?
- Roberta, Birmingham
Very sad.
Expect more gvt control of citizens to be implemented - more anti-this or that laws, more censorship, more 1930s style "freedom"
- Trunk, US
I would think that if they didn't have strict laws against violent computer games etc, there would be even more violent crimes.
This crime was obviously because he was expelled a couple of years before and has festered like a wound.
I don't know the answer, but it certainly isn't letting kids watch even more violent stuff.
- W, suffolk
It's so sad that similar tragedies repeated again, some of the victims 're too young. I just wanted to pray for them and sent my condolence to family and people there. I travelled and had some friends in Stuttgart over 10 years ago. I think that politicians should study and have better plan for the society to stop this kind of tragedy, not just have strict weapons laws.
- Patrict, Norway
Germany has one of the strictest censorship programs in the world, no violent computer games or films are allowed for sale, is it possible this is connected?
- Daveb, london
