NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Thursday, March 14, 1996 5A Massacre in Scotland claims 16 children Lone gunman opens fire on kindergartners takes own life The Associated Press Knight-Ridder Tribune DUNBLANE, Scotland — One child, sobbing, leaned heavily against a car door. Another, her eyes glazed, stumbled through the jostling crowd at the primary school gate. Dunblane, a tranquil cathedral town at the foot of the Scottish Highlands, recolled in grief and horror yesterday after a disgraced former Boy Scout leader armed with four handguns killed or wounded all but one of 29 kindergartners playing in the school gymnasium, and killed their teacher. In the main street nearby, a woman shrieked, "Victoria! Victoria!" The slaughter of the innocents was finished in moments. Just setting in is the shock and stunned disbelief in this town of 9,000 people about 35 miles northwest of Edinburgh. "Just now, to most people, this is a nightmare," said school board member Gerry McDermott. "But they will not wake up from it." Frankie parents tried to get into the school as police and ambulance workers inside confronted the horror of the crime scene. "I can only describe what I saw ... as a medieval vision of hell," paramedic John McEwan told The Sun, a London tabloid. "There were little bodies in piles, dotted around the room, and items of children's clothing like shoes and pumps around the floor." The final toll was 16 dead children, 12 wounded children, two dead adults — one of them the gunman, who took his own life — and two wounded teachers. The assailant was identified as Thomas Hamilton, 43, a reclusive individual who lived in a public housing project in Stirling, 5 miles away, and supervised a boys' ath- Hamilton was a scout leader in the early 1970s but was expelled for what the Boy Scouts Association called complaints about unstable and possibly improper behavior following a Scout camp. Hamilton had sought reinstitution as a scout leader, and as recently as five days ago he had written Queen Elizabeth II to complain that the Boy Scouts Association was sullying his reputation. At 9:30 a.m., teacher Gwen Mayor, 44, was supervising 29 youngsters as they ran around the gym and took turns scrambling up the climbing bars. Teachers ordered them under their desks. The principal dialed the police. It was at that time Hamilton appeared in the doorway — and opened fire on them all. heard a noise like firecrackers and jumped up from their desks and ran to windows to see what was going on. It was Britain's worst shooting since Michael Ryan, 27, shot 16 people in the southern English market town of Hungerford on Aug. 19, 1987. He, too, killed himself. Elsewhere in the school, children Parents quickly learned of the shootings and rushed to the school. The lucky ones, sobbing with relief, hugged the older children who emerged. There was neither relief nor solace for those led to an adjacent building or the nearby Westlands Hotel to be told the worst possible news, that their daughters or sons were dead. Shortly after the massacre, a group of teen-age boys walked around to the rear of the roped-off school and stared at bullet holes in the gym windows. They recalled Hamilton as a strange man who made them feel uncomfortable. "He used to walk me down from the boys' club and try to invite himself into my house. He seemed queer," said Jamie Milligan, 14. On television, politicians' voices shook with emotion. The queen sent a message — "I share the grief and horror of the whole country" — as did Prime Minister John Major, from a summit on terrorism in Cairo, Egypt. As darkness fell yesterday, parents formally identified their slaughtered children in the town mortuary or at Stirling Royal Infirmary. Scores of people drifted in ones, twos and threes toward the town cathedral, where they knelt and prayed in silence. On Hillside Avenue, Jean Shannon glanced toward the next-door yard and knew she'd never see young Kevin Hasell playing there again. "He was a lovable wee thing, a typical wee boy," she said. "I've been over to the house. They're bloody shocked. Like us all." STUDENT UNION ACTIVITIES SUA FILMS $ 35 ADULT Before = Healing + Baby A00 A0 M + Healing + Sleeping FRIDAY - SUNDAY MARCH 15 - 17 THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT FRIDAY AND SATURDAY 7:00 & 9:30, & SUNDAY 2:00 DEATH RACE 2000 FRIDAY AND SATURDAY MIDNIGHT ALL BROWS IN WOODMEN'S TICKETS $2.45, MIDNIGHTS $2.90 FREE WITH BMA MOVIE CARD CALL 814-614-5000 FOR MOREINFO. Crown Cinema BEFORE 6 P.M. 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