FRANKFURT, Germany — At least 15 people were killed when a black-clad attacker stormed into a high school in near Stuttgart on Wednesday morning and opened fire and then fled to another town where the police fatally shot him.
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The New York Times
German news reports and a police spokesman described the attacker as a 17-year-old who was known to the police and might have been a student at the school.
Erwin Hetger, the state chief of police force, said that an emergency call came from the Albertville technical school, in the town of Winnenden, at 9:33 a.m.. But when officers arrived on the scene, the shooter had already fled in the direction of the town center, he said.
Firefighters, paramedics and columns of heavily armed commandos swarmed the school, and sealed off the town of Winnenden’s small downtown area, while psychologists and clergy counseled the school’s students and their parents. Other schools were evacuated, and local media reported that up to 10 helicopters were circling the town, which has a population of some 27,000.
The police issued a public warning to motorists not to pick up hitchhikers, but the attacker hijacked a car, news reports said.
He drove to the town of Wendlingen, 25 miles away, where the police killed him in a shootout that left two passers-by dead and two police officers wounded.
In the first confused hours after the attack, German officials gave differing death tolls.
“The terrible fact is that they already saw 10 dead there,” said Mr. Hetger, the chief of police forces.
Heribert Rech, the state interior minister, told journalists in Winnenden that 16 had died, including the attacker, in the school shooting and subsequent gunfire. “The terrible scale of this event is still beyond comprehension,” Mr. Rech said.
In the past seven years, Germany has been the scene of several horrific school shootings, which have shocked a nation where the possession of firearms is heavily regulated.
In 2002, a gunman massacred 17 people at a school in Erfurt, in eastern Germany. Three years ago, a former pupil at a school in the country’s northwest wounded 11 people during a shooting spree.
15 Killed in School Shooting in Germany
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