16 people killed in school shooting in Germany

A teenager in black combat gear went on a bloody rampage at his former school in Germany on Wednesday, slaying at least 15 people before dying in a shootout with police, officials said. Nine pupils, three teachers and three passers-by were among those killed in the shooting spree at the secondary school in Winnenden, said Heribert Rech, the interior minister of the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. After armed commandos with helicopters and dogs launched a massive hunt for the 17-year-old gunman, he was killed in a fire-fight with police. German media reports said that he had shot himself dead in the car park of a nearby shopping centre after kidnapping a man and his Volkswagen Sharan car and drove through a police barrier towards the motorway. "The gunman just sprayed bullets all around him," N-TV cited an unnamed witness as saying. A local radio journalist told the same channel that the ex-pupil had used a machine gun during his rampage.