GERMANY: A gun-wielding teenager burst into a German school yesterday and opened fire, injuring at least 27 people before killing himself, leaving behind a farewell note on the internet reading: "I despise people. You all must die."
The masked 18-year-old walked into the yard of his former secondary school in Emsden, near the Dutch border, during morning break at 9.30 yesterday and began shooting.
He hit the school caretaker in the stomach and injured a pregnant teacher and several students before disappearing into the school building.
He killed himself as a team of commandos stormed the building. They found his body, face disfigured from a gunshot with a knife strapped to his leg and four pipe bombs around his body.
Investigators found pictures of him on the internet yesterday, posing with guns, alongside the angry letter of a teenager who felt humiliated by his peers and former teachers.
"A large part of my revenge will be directed at the teaching staff . . . who helped to put me where I am today. On the slaughter field", he wrote. "The only thing that I learned well in school was that I am a loser . . . since I was six, you've been taking me for a ride. Now you must pay."
The gunman graduated from the vocational secondary school last year and fellow pupils said he was a good student with a particular talent for maths.