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Police Prevent High School Shooting

CNN
Posted: 2007-11-18 23:13:46
Filed Under: World News
BERLIN, Germany (Nov. 18) - German police announced Sunday they stopped two teenagers from carrying out a rampage at their Cologne high school and that one of the students committed suicide after being confronted.

Photo Gallery: A Thwarted Plan

Wolfgang Rattay, Reuters

According to authorities, two German students, aged 17 and 18, were planning a shooting rampage that was to take place Tuesday at Georg Buechner high school, above, in Cologne, Germany.

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The attack was planned for Tuesday, police said, and may have been intended to coincide with the anniversary of a school shooting last year in Germany.

One of the suspects, age 17, committed suicide Friday after police and a high school teacher confronted him about his Web page, which featured material glorifying the Columbine shootings, Jurgen Laggies, a spokesman for Cologne police told CNN.

The Web page contained photographs of the 1999 U.S. school shooting and links to Web pages celebrating the massacre, Laggies said.

German news outlets reported he died after intentionally stepping in front of a tram in Cologne, Germany.

The other suspect, age 18, was in police custody, Laggies said.

Following the Friday confrontation with the 17-year-old, whom police described as "quiet," police said they believed he understood their concerns about his glorification of the killings at Columbine High School in Colorado and was planning to remove the material from his Web site.

In 1999, two students killed 13 people at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado, before both committing suicide.

After Cologne police were alerted to the plot to attack the Georg-Buechner Gymnasium in the western district of Junkirdors, they confiscated two crossbows, two air guns and a list of intended victims, Laggies said.

Police also uncovered instructions in the students' papers on how to build a pipe bomb, though there was no evidence of an actual bomb, he said.

It was not immediately clear where the police confiscated the items, or whether police found them before or after the 17-year-old died.

Laggies pointed out that Tuesday, the day the suspects had planned to carry out the attack, was the anniversary of a 2006 school shooting in Emsdetten, outside Muenster in western Germany.

In the 2006 attack, an 18-year-old former student shot and wounded six people before killing himself. He had posted a letter on his personal Web page saying he planned to kill himself in a spectacular way. The Web page included photos of himself with weapons and messages expressing hatred of people.

This month, a student in Finland killed eight people in a high school before fatally turning the gun on himself.

2007-11-18 18:53:07
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Recent Comments

1 - 10 of 166
166 comments

Queenofsafety 02:51:49 PM Nov 21 2007

Applause to the police who prevented this crime.

Thanksgiving is meant to be a time of reflection and appreciation, a time of gratitude. It is a time set aside to remember what is important, to foster thankfulness in our hearts for the many blessings that we enjoy every single day.

Keep your children Safe , have Love in your Heart, and enjoy your Holiday.

Queenofsafety 02:51:45 PM Nov 21 2007

Applause to the police who prevented this crime.

Thanksgiving is meant to be a time of reflection and appreciation, a time of gratitude. It is a time set aside to remember what is important, to foster thankfulness in our hearts for the many blessings that we enjoy every single day.

Keep your children Safe , have Love in your Heart, and enjoy your Holiday.

user735515 08:42:48 AM Nov 20 2007

What is with all these nut job kids now days? This is a good reason to legalize pot. You hear about people getting drunk, or high on crack or cocaine or crystal meth and killing people. You never hear about someone smoking a joint and killing people. They might want to kill someone, then smoke a joint and forget they wanted to kill anyone, but that's as close as it gets...lol... As for the quiet ones, as George Carlin said, "While you're watching one of the quiet ones, a loud motherf**ker with a machette is likely to kill you!"

OJasonO 01:14:51 AM Nov 20 2007

oh, people pick on me...wahhhhhhhhhhh!!! im gonna shoot someone 'cause im a big sissy...whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! alteasmt one of the is gone. of course he was "quiet"! its always they quiet ones! of course, that would be "profiling"! lol

Flllnd 08:29:00 PM Nov 19 2007

More and more countries have this problem. Too bad. Some rich men on richsoulmate.com said we should be very strict with ownership of guns. I agree.

Queenofsafety 08:07:51 PM Nov 19 2007

Good job to the police for stopping this. Can't understand why these kids all want to shoot each other and then themselves. Could it be that all they see on the news is negative? All the shows on television are negative? Many of the games are extremely violent? Their parent (s) work and they are left at home with no supervision? We've lost our morals and values as a society? Parents cannot correct their children without being turned into child services? They read all the negative posts in AOL? Gee, I can't imagine why kids are so depressed and violent.

Thrashermjf 07:57:22 PM Nov 19 2007

wend520; What the heck do you know about germany? Have you een our gun control policie. How many Colombine-type hooting here in the U.S. ? And how many have they had in Germany? Out of our every 20 shootings, the German police barely had 1. The Germans have stoped and prevented more terrorism acts and school shootings than we have.

rkjeff4 07:08:29 PM Nov 19 2007

Why is the new in thing to go ona rampage???????

wend520 05:56:20 PM Nov 19 2007

there is no gun control in all of the UK and now it appears in Germany. Everyone who wants a gun can buy one illegally. and they aren't for protection,they are for crimes.

Shilohc3 04:56:35 PM Nov 19 2007

Good for the Germany Police Force! We should be more like them! Take action, and follow through.

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