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CNN Live Today

17 Killed in School Shooting in Germany

Aired April 26, 2002 - 12:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get to Germany straight away right now. Shock is settling in after 17 people shot and killed at a high school today. We're told the suspect, armed with two weapons, began firing randomly before turning the gun on himself. That shooting happened in the town of Erfurt, about 150 miles southwest of Berlin. CNN Producer Alex Quaid (ph) back on the scene by telephone with us now. Good evening to you, Alex, there in Germany.

ALEX QUAID, CNN PRODUCER: Hi, Bill. It is the bloodiest massacre ever in Germany at a school. It is being compared to America's Columbine High School shooting, 18 people dead and four injured, after a masked, armed gunmen dressed in black went on a shooting rampage at the Erfurt Gutenberg (ph) Secondary School.

Now among the dead, 14 teachers, two students, one police officer; this was the police officer who was the first officer to charge into the school, and last the 19-year-old gunman who police say shot himself when the officer charged into the classroom that he barricaded himself into.

Police have really searched the high school, looking for a possible second gunman, but police say they cannot confirm students reports that there is or was a second gunman, but they are still looking around the area. When police and medics arrived into the high school, they found a horrible scene.

HEMMER: All right, Alex Quaid by telephone there in Germany. We're going to speak now and bring in a person who apparently has knowledge of the gunman. Again, we reported a 19-year-old claimed his own life inside that school, one of 18 dead on the scene. Isabell Hartung is with us by telephone. If you can hear me OK, how well did you know the gunman?

ISABELL HARTUNG, FORMER STUDENT: I only knew him, that he was in the 19th class when I was in the 11th, and I knew him from school and when we had breaks, we stood outside and smoked a cigarette maybe, and then I knew him that when after school, we went to the city with friends. There were little talks. He's not my best friend, but he's a -- I know him.

HEMMER: Yes, Isabell, we're told that he left school, expelled from school several weeks ago. Do you know why, the reason for that expulsion? Why was he kicked out? HARTUNG: No, I don't know, but I think that he didn't want to make the school but then when he saw that all his friends now today, they wrote their (UNINTELLIGIBLE), then he get like out and so he went to the school.

HEMMER: Yes, you mentioned his friends. Did he have many friends, Isabell?

HARTUNG: Yes, he had many friends, really, and all of them liked him very much and he was always funny and he had always a joke, and they liked him very much.

HEMMER: Did he ever talk about his teachers?

HARTUNG: What?

HEMMER: Did he ever talk about his schoolteachers?

HARTUNG: He, with me?

HEMMER: Yes, with you or other friends, did he talk about them, because apparently at this point 14 of them are dead?

HARTUNG: Yes, he had sometime trouble with his teachers. That's what I know, because he came too late to school and such things but not that he would do such a thing. It was horribly.

HEMMER: The eyewitnesses inside the school say he was dressed in black, some report from head to toe. Was that unusual for him?

HARTUNG: Yes -- no. No. He wears always black.

HEMMER: Yes. Did you have any knowledge about him owning a gun?

HARTUNG: No. I don't know where he got it.

HEMMER: What is the feeling there? We have said that Germany is in a state of shock. We don't want to speak for the entire country, certainly, but have you been able to sense what the mood is after this horrific shooting earlier today?

HARTUNG: Yes, I was very shocked. I get to the school and then I saw children and teachers and parents and they all cried, and the worst thing for me was or the hardest thing for me was that I saw a little girl. She came to me and she said that she saw him when he came in, and then he shoot for a few times and her teacher was lying dead beside her.

HEMMER: Many times Europeans will say this is the kind of stuff that happens in other places, places like the United States, and not in places like Germany. What was your immediate reaction when you caught word?

HARTUNG: I didn't understand.

HEMMER: Yes, what was your reaction when you heard of the crime committed inside your school?

HARTUNG: I was very sad and I thought of my teachers, and I had them for eight years, and I was really shocked, and there are many dead teachers that I had in my school time.

HEMMER: Our thoughts are with you. Isabell Hartung, a woman there in Germany who knew the gunman. She says not very well, but did have knowledge of him. But clearly, that is a country that is reeling right now. Fourteen teachers dead, two students dead, two girls, a police officer and the gunman himself, a 19-year-old student, expelled from the school several weeks ago, tough day for Germany today.

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