Three killed in US school shooting

The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV, was inside for over half an hour and had barred the doors with the girls inside, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. By the time officers broke windows to get in, three girls and the gunman were dead, Miller said.

Lancaster County Coroner G Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn8217;t certain. At least seven people were taken to hospitals, including at least three girls in critical condition with gunshot wounds.

Roberts walked into the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School with a shotgun and handgun, then released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with infants before barring the doors, Miller said.

The girls were lined up along a blackboard and their feet were bound, he said.

A teacher called police around 10:30 am and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.

About 11 am, Roberts apparently called his wife from a cell phone, saying he was 8220;acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago,8217;8217; Miller said. 8220;It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims.8217;8217;

Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn8217;t back away from the building. Troopers heard gunfire in the building seconds later.

The school has about 25 to 30 students in all, ages 6 to 13.

8220;It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims,8221; Miller said. He released no further details about what the grudge Roberts mentioned could have involved.

The school is among farmlands just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 90 km west of Philadelphia. Hours after the shootings, about three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, hats and bonnets stood near the small building, surrounded by a white board fence, as investigators walked in line through fields searching for evidence.

Numbering about 180,000, the Amish, have settlements in 25 states and Ontario with 70 percent of the population in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. They practice a form of Christianity that emphasises piety, modesty and community derived from a literal reading of the Bible.

Because of their belief in separating their communities from the outside world, which they consider corrupting, they have strict regulations over societal customs. They tend to dress in simple, mostly dark clothes with little ornamentation, speak in a German dialect, and often shun technological innovation they deem corrosive to their way of life, including electricity, television, automobiles, telephones and tractors.

The Amish run their own schools, but most communities educate their children only through the eighth grade. US courts have exempted the Amish from requiring further education on the grounds of religious freedom.

-MARK SCOLFORO