THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2007
NEWS
5A
》 CRIME
Gunman kills 7 students, principal in Finland
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pupils leave the Jokela high school in Tusaua, Finland, Wednesday, with their parents after a shooting. Officials said at least eight people were killed after an 18-year-old man opened fire at the Jokela High School in southern Finland. Another person was "severely injured" while 10 other people had minor injuries. Nitirsuena, said.
TUUSULA, Finland — An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at his high school in this placid town in southern Finland on Wednesday, killing seven other students and the principal before mortally wounding himself in a rampage that stunned a nation where gun crime is rare.
Police were analyzing YouTube postings that appeared to anticipate the massacre, including clips in which a young man calls for revolution and apparently prepares for the attack by test firing on a semi-automatic handgun.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Investigators said the gunman, who was not identified, shot himself in the head after the shooting spree at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki. He died later at Tooolo Hospital in Helsinki.
The teen killed five boys, two girls and the female principal with a.22 caliber pistol, police said, adding that about a dozen more people were injured while fleeing the school. Officials said more than 400 students ages 12 through 18 were enrolled.
Witnesses described a scene of mayhem at the school in the leafy lakeside community, saying the shooter prowled the building looking for victims while shouting slogans for "revolution."
Police Chief Matti Tohkanen said the gunman didn't have a previous criminal record. "He was from an ordinary family," Tohkanen said. He said the teen belonged to a gun club and had gotten a license for the pistol Oct. 19.
Gun ownership is fairly common in Finland by European standards, but deadly shootings are rare. Finnish media reported that a school shooting in 1989 involved a 14-year-old boy who killed two other students apparently for teasing him.
Investigators were searching for connections to the shooter and a possible motive in YouTube postings
that appeared to reveal plans for Wednesday's deadly attack.
One video, titled "Jokela High School Massacre," showed a picture of what appeared to be the Jokela school and two photos of a young man holding a handgun. The person who posted the video was identified in the user profile as an 18-year-old man from Finland. The posting was later removed.
The profile contained a text calling for a "revolution against the system."
Another video clip showed a young man clad in a dark jacket loading a clip into a handgun and firing several shots at an apple placed on the ground in a wooded area. He smiled and waved to the camera at the end of the clip.
A third clip showed photos of what appeared to be same man posing with a gun and wearing a T-shirt with the text "Humanity is overrated."
Kim Kiuru, a teacher, said the principal announced over the public address system just before noon that all students should remain in their classrooms.
"After that I saw the gunman running with what appeared to be a small-caliber handgun in his hand through the doors toward me, after which I escaped to the corridor downstairs and ran in the opposite direction." Kuru told reporters.
He said he saw a woman's body as he fleed the building.
"Then my pupils shouted at me out of the windows to ask what they should do and I told them to jump out of the windows ... and all my pupils were saved." Kiura said.
Terhi Vayrynen, a 17-year-old student, told The Associated Press that her brother Henri, 13, and his classmates had witnessed the assailant shoot the principal outside the school through their classroom windows.
She said the gunman then entered her brother's classroom shouting: "Revolution! Smash everything!"
When no one did anything, the
attacker shot the television set and windows but did not fire at the youngsters, she said. Then he ran out and down the corridor.
Viviani Korhonen, a student at the high school, told Finnish broadcaster YLE she feared for her life as news of the shooting spread through the building.
"We were terrified and afraid. We thought that we might die as he was still able to come to our classroom," she said. "We were informed all the time. We were calling our friends
"Mostly nothing happens here, this is nice surroundings and not any criminals to talk of. This was a total surprise," said Reijo Pekka, whose Artuu Sililata was at the school.
Residents in Tuscula, a town of 34,000 people, said such attacks were unheard in of the area.
and asking for information."
Students said the killer often wore the same clothes to school — brown leather jacket, black trousers and checkered shirt — and usually carried a briefcase.
Tuomas Hulkkonen, another student, said he knew the gunman well, and added that the teen had been acting strange lately.
"He withdrew into his shell. I had noticed a change in him just recently, and I thought that perhaps he was a bit depressed, or something, but I couldn't imagine that in reality he would do anything like this," Hulkkonen told Finnish TV broadcaster MTV3.
Experts warned that the shooting could inspire copycat attacks.
"An event like this in Finland might have an effect in the U.S." Christopher P. Lucas, a psychiatry professor at New York University, said.
He said YouTube provided a ready way for shooters to publicize their acts and provided some sort of justification.
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen described the bloodshed as "extremely tragic" and declared Thursday a day of mourning with flags to be flown half-staff.
COURT CASE
Teacher accused of fleeing with boy faces charges
EL CENTRO, Calif. — A judge denied bail Wednesday for a 25-year-old teacher accused of fleeing to Mexico with a 13-year-old student, and the woman agreed to be transferred from California to Nebraska to face the charges.
Kelsey Peterson's court-appointed attorney argued for $100,000 bail, but a federal magis trate judge in El Centro ruled she was a flight risk.
Associated Press
The boy immigrated illegally to the U.S. when he was younger and speaks little Spanish.
Peterson is charged with taking a minor across state lines with the intention of having sex with him. The boy considered Peterson his best friend, but not his girlfriend.
and had sex with her "maybe twice," he said in an interview at a home in Janitzio, Mexico, where he is staying with a family friend temporarily.
Authorities in Lexington, Neb., said during the week the pair was on the run that the teacher and her former student had exchanged romantic e-mail messages.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
POLITICS
Pat Robertson endorses Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani during a news conference Wednesday in Washington. "Rudy Giuliani took a city that was in decline and considered ungovernable and reduced its violent crime, revitalized its core, dramatically lowered its taxes, cut through a眉ure of bureaucratic regulations, and did so in the spirit of bipartisanship, which is so urgently needed in Washington today," Robertson said.
Televangelist endorses Giuliani
Christian group supports issues
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Televangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, endorsed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday.
"It is my pleasure to announce my support for America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, a proven leader who is not afraid of what lies ahead and who will cast a hopeful vision for all Americans," Robertson said during a news conference with Giuliani in Washington.
The former New York mayor backs abortion rights and gay rights, positions that put him in conflict with conservative GOP orthodoxy, and has been trying to persuade evangelical conservatives like Robertson to overlook their differences on those issues.
Evangelicals have split in their support for the leading Republican candidates. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a favorite of Christian conservatives who dropped out of the race last month, endorsed fellow Sen. John McCain of Arizona on Wednesday. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney recently announced that Paul Weyrich and Bob Jones III were on board with his candidacy.
Asked about the Robertson endorsement, McCain, at a news conference with Brownback in Dubuque, Iowa, said. "Every once in a while, I'm left speechless. This is one of those times."
Giuliani is best known to voters for leading New York in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Shortly after 9/11, Robertson released a statement in which he said the attacks occurred because Americans had insulted God and lost the protection of heaven by allowing abortion and "rampant Internet pornography."
Robertson made no mention of his differences with Giuliani on
"Rudy Giuliani took a city that was in decline and considered ungovernable and reduced its violent crime, revitalized its core, dramatically lowered its taxes, cut through a welter of bureaucratic regulations, and did so in the spirit of bipartisan ship which is so urgently needed in Washington today." Robertson said.
social issues in Wednesday's statement.
Robertson, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 1988, founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Christian Coalition and Regent University in Virginia Beach.
Also Wednesday, Giuliani said he
asked two GOP friends in Congress, Reps. King of New York and Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, to introduce bills to keep states from giving licenses or similar identification to illegal immigrants.
The Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, was criticized after a televised debate last week when she hedged an answer on whether she supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's effort to grant licenses to illegal immigrants. Her aides said she generally supported the idea in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform.