A shooting at a school in southern Germany has left 16 people dead, including the 17-year-old gunman, police have said.
Police shot the suspect after he fled Albertville high school in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, a local official said.
A man dressed in black had entered the school at around 0930 local time and opened fire, police and media reported.
"He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath," Erwin Hetger, a regional police chief, said. "I've never seen anything like this in my life".
Witnesses said students jumped from the windows of the school building
after the gunman opened fire.
Heribert Rech, the state interior minister, said three teachers were among the dead. At least 10 students were also killed in the attack, police said.
'Sprayed bullets'
Petra Wischgoll, a journalist in Cologne, told Al Jazeera "the students and the school and everybody involved are in shock".
"It started at about 0930 this morning when a man all dressed in black entered the school and just started shooting around. He then ... fled into the city centre.."
"A doctor has been quoted saying they found four students in one classroom, and another four students in another classroom and another two outside, dead," she said.
"The gunman just sprayed bullets all around him," N-TV, a German television station, quoted a witness as saying.
The TV station said the gunman, dressed in black combat fatigues, was a 17-year-old former student of the school who was known to police.
Philipp Grohm, a journalist from Stuttgart radio told the channel that the attacker had used a machine gun.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/03/2009311101642382674.htmlPsychopath.