Former student storms German school, shooting 5 people

EMSDETTEN, Germany -- A masked, 18-year-old gunman stormed his former high school in northwestern Germany Monday, shooting five people and setting off smoke bombs before he was found dead with pipe bombs strapped to his body, police said.

Witnesses said the gunman -- identified by Germany media and witnesses as Sebastian Bosse -- parked his car nearby the school in Emsdetten, near the Dutch border, and opened fire as soon as he entered the school yard. He wounded five people and sent students running in all directions.

The first patrol car arrived at the scene six minutes after a distress call from a school secretary, prompting Bosse to withdraw to the second floor, said Hans Volkmann, a senior police officer.

Heavily armed police searched the building room by room, evacuating four more terrified students. They found Bosse lying dead near two of his guns, a knife strapped to his leg.

Volkmann said Bosse's face was "unrecognizable" because of serious injuries and that it wasn't immediately clear if he had shot himself or was killed by one of his bombs. Police fired no shots, he said.

Police recovered his body in the evening after explosives experts defused three homemade pipe bombs on his body and five more in his backpack. Four more bombs were found in his car.

Four students ages 12 to 16 and the head caretaker at the school were wounded with gunshots. Several of the injuries were serious, but none were life-threatening.

Another 22 people, most of them police officers, suffered suffered smoke inhalation from the smoke bombs.

The incident brought back memories of a shooting rampage in the eastern German city of Erfurt in 2002, when an alienated former pupil killed himself and 16 others, most of them teachers.

Investigators and students described Bosse as a misfit obsessed with violence and guns. He was due to go on trial on Tuesday after he was caught with a loaded pistol several months ago. His father collapsed after hearing what his son had done and was being treated in hospital.

"He seems to have been frustrated by a lack of meaning in his life," state prosecutor Wolfgang Schweer said. "It appears that he was a loner who decided on his own to do this."

On his Internet site, Bosse can be seen posing in military-style uniform and brandishing a gun. His site also includes a chilling warning and comments that indicated he was contemplating suicide. The site was inaccessible soon after the attack.

Bosse raged against politicians, the police and above all his teachers and fellow students for treating him as a "loser." He said he had decided to take revenge and "disappear from this life."

"This revenge will be carried out so brutally and without quarter, that the blood will freeze in your veins," he wrote.

Students at the school said Bosse was an aloof individual who played violent computer games and had said he wanted to join the army.

Katja Weber, a 17-year-old student at the school, said he always wore a black hat and coat. "He was an absolute loner," Weber told reporters outside the school. "Guns were his hobby."

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