Several killed in Pennsylvania school attack

NEW YORK, Oct 2 (Reuters) A gunman today attacked an Amish school in Pennsylvania, shooting and killing a number of people including an unknown number of students before he was captured or killed, police said.

''There are a number dead. The exact number I am not sure at this point. There are also a number of wounded. And the shooter is not at large,'' said state police Corporal Ralph Striebig of the schoolhouse was in rural Lancaster County.

''There are multiple injuries. There are multiple casualties. I cannot give any names or numbers. It's a horrible, horrible tragedy,'' Lancaster County Coroner Gary Kirchner told Reuters.

A local hospital said that three girls including one aged 11 were in critical condition with gunshot wounds.

The hostage-taker was either killed or captured at the scene. ''One or the other, but he's not at large,'' Striebig said.

The incident, the third school shooting in a week in the United States, happened at Georgetown Amish School in Bart Township.

''The three that are here are in a critical condition, they will be airlifted from our hospital to pediatric hospitals in the region,'' said Lancaster General Hospital spokesman John Lines. ''They arrived here suffering from gunshot wounds.'' A spokeswoman at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center said it was also receiving patients from the school, but gave no information yet on how many.

Amish schools typically group students from the first through eighth grade -- aged about six to 14 -- in the same schoolhouse, so the victims were likely ''teens or pre-teens.

They're all in one school from first grade up,'' Striebig said.

The Amish people dress and live simply in Lancaster County farm country, shunning modern machines and vehicles including cars and cultivating their land using old-fashioned traditions.

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.'' The shooting in Pennsylvania followed reports earlier on Monday of lockdowns at two Las Vegas area schools as police searched for an armed youth, local television reported.

Last Friday a 15-year-old student killed his school's principal in western Wisconsin.

Last Wednesday a drifter took six female high school students hostage, molested them and then shot one to death and killed himself as police closed in.

REUTERS SK BD2341