School shooter warned of attack, in chat room
By VANESSA GERA and MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writers

WINNENDEN, Germany – "You will hear from me tomorrow, remember the name of a place called Winnenden."

Authorities say a 17-year-old left that message in an Internet chat room six hours before he went on a rampage in his former high school and killed 15 people in this southwest German town.

...

Authorities said they found some 60 shell casings in the school and that the number of victims could have been much higher had educators and police not carried out a plan learned in an earlier training program preparing them to respond to such a shooting.

The principal broadcast a secret code known to teachers and students across the public address system warning them that a gunman was in the school. Teachers swiftly locked their classroom doors and ordered students to hit the floor, tipping over their desks in the process to provide extra protection.

When the first police squads arrived minutes later, they immediately stormed the building, under fire from Kretschmer as they came up the stairs before chasing him from the building, said state police president Erwin Hetger.

"We know from previous school shootings that the perpetrators only stop when they run out of ammunition, when they feel threatened by the police, or when they take their own lives," Hetger said.

"This gunman had more than 250 bullets on him when he entered the school," Hetger said.

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Eddy reported from Berlin.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090312/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_school_attack

I am personally impressed that the school had trained and have procedures in place for this type of incident!

This must have something to do with the underground market of selling weapons from Russia into the German economy.

Germany has one of the toughest laws in Western Europe concerning Gun Laws.

Although our crime rate is nothing compared to the United States, I am sure strong measurements will be taken after these events.

I'm quite sure there was an anti-depressent drug involved. There always is 100% of the time for every single school shooting! Guess you're not depressed anymore when dead, is that how they claim these drugs work?

The "just say no" drug campaign - what a crock. Kids would be better off on pot and cocaine that these ultra-dangerous anti-depressants.

I usually view these shootings, as a result of something gone terribly wrong with the society and values.

These horrible events should be looked as something much more than searching about the kid's psychological problems, instead take several steps back from the big picture and evaluate what makes youth become like this. It's pretty much the same like the Columbine or the Virginia Tech.

Funny how as soon as there is a major anti-gun legislation inbound, there all these shootings just spring up everywhere. And most end up with a suicide at the end of a rampage, so that there will be no one to question.

Up-date...unconfirmed but here it is.

German police suspect chat room posts were faked

By VANESSA GERA and MELISSA EDDY – 7 hours ago

WINNENDEN, Germany (AP) — German police said Thursday they now doubt whether a chat room post attributed to a teenager who went on a shooting rampage is real.

Police spokesman Klaus Hinderer said authorities are looking into whether the Internet postings were faked. Hinderer's statement contradicted his earlier announcement that authorities were "completely convinced of the veracity of the post."

The post appeared in a chat room some six hours before the shooter, Tim Kretschmer, went on a rampage Wednesday at his former high school and killed 15 people in and around the southwest German town of Winnenden.

A joint statement released late Thursday by regional police and Stuttgart prosecutors said that, "in the course of the afternoon, doubts arose about the veracity of the Internet chat."

Hinderer said a search of Kretschmer's computer had shown no trace of his having made the chat room posting.

Stuttgart state prosecutors, who are leading the investigation, said they were trying to reach the U.S.-based provider of the site. A message posted to the site Thursday said, "No killing spree was announced here."

Prosecutors' Spokeswoman Claudia Krauth told The Associated Press that they shared the police doubts.

"It is diametrically contrary to our earlier announcement," Krauth said.

She would not provide details on why authorities now doubt the posts.

"Now we need to check whether it's really false, how that could have been done and who it was," Krauth said.

Police said they learned of the chat from a Bavarian teen who told his father and then police about it when he realized the threat had been real.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-7Dbm7W0ADoXhfKS2O_sUrZu4NwD96SO9705

Oh and yeah...nogames...I will make sure and send your name and address to the friends and families of the dead since you know...they were just stunt dead designated to be props in the plot to take your guns away!

STFU and accept the fact that there are guns in the hands of people who do not deserve to own them.

They lessen the rest of us just like you do.

Owning a gun does not make you a good guy or a smart guy or an intelligent guy.

Not owning a gun doesn't make you any of those things either.

If gun owners were responsible and quit being tools of the NRA (Read that:An interest group that divides and prospers on the send us your money to defend your interests messages) we wouldn't have this disgusting mess....

Divide and conquer? I bet there are plenty of fat cats laughing at the idiot frenzy they so easily whip up.

The NRA is killing the rights of gun owners with it's inflexibility as much as any on gee guns are bad group ever has.

The government taking your guns?

Why should they?

Unreasonable stupidity will win the day sooner than later. Silly bastards will keep giving reasonable gun owners and those who do not own guns examples that will motivate bad gun legislation.

haha

I say this as a person who owns guns.

Go ahead...Shoot yourself in the foot!