Gunman targets Pennsylvania school

A gunman opened fire at an Amish school in rural Pennsylvania yesterday, shooting and killing three girls and wounding seven others before killing himself, police said.

The shooting took place at a one-room schoolhouse in rural Lancaster County, about 100 km west of Philadelphia.

Three girls were confirmed dead and seven people were injured, state police said. He shot the victims "execution style" in the head, police said.

The gunman arrived at the school in the late morning and took hostages, Cmdr Jeffrey Miller of the Pennsylvania state police told a news conference at the scene in Bart Township.

He began shooting an automatic handgun, and police then charged the schoolhouse.

The gunman had tied up the girls, while letting the boys and some others leave, Cmdr Miller added.

He said the three dead girls appeared to have been two students and a teacher's aide - an older girl. The school teaches students aged about 6 to 13.

"It's a horrendous crime scene," Cmdr Miller said.

The gunman was identified as truck driver Charles Carl Roberts, 32, a local resident. Cmdr Miller said the motive was still being determined, but "apparently he did make a statement to his wife that he was acting out of revenge... for something that occurred 20 years ago."

The incident was the third school shooting in a week in the US.

The Pennsylvania shooting occurred in a normally placid, rural community where Amish farmers live simply, shunning modern machines and vehicles including cars, travel by horse and buggy and cultivate their land using old-fashioned traditions.

Tourists visit the area to buy antiques and old-fashioned quilts.

The shooting was a shock to a community that one resident called almost crime-free.

Aaron Meyer, owner of a local buggy company, told CNN: "In this township of about 30,000 people, we have no police. Because there's just virtually no crime. Many of these townships here have no police at all."

A witness told the Lancaster New Era newspaper that the gunman pulled up in a pickup truck outside the Georgetown School and ran into the schoolroom where several children were doing their lessons.

The teacher and some visitors fled and ran to a nearby farm for help, while the gunman ordered all the boys out of the school.