- Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D., Executive Director,
- International Coalition For Drug Awareness
- Websites:
- www.drugawareness.org & www.ssristories.com
- Author: Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare
- & CD or audio tape on safe withdrawal: "Help!
I Can't Get
- Off My Antidepressant!"
- Order Number 800-280-0730
-
- Phone 801-209-1800
- E-mail atracyphd1@aol.com
-
-
- Confirmation out of Scotland newspaper:
-
- Paragraph 7 reads: "Police, however, by the weekend
had come to the view the post was probably a hoax. 'Some crazy person obviously
put out this dreadful false message,' a red-faced Rech admitted. The internet
posting, however, did tally with early descriptions of Kretschmer's state
of mind in the days and weeks up to the events of Wednesday. It emerged
that Kretschmer had been suffering from depression, even attending a clinic
and receiving medication for the condition."
-
- http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/world/Freshfaced-killer-who-brought-.5073239.jp
-
-
- Fresh-faced killer who brought a chilling
carnage to the suburbs
- By David Leask
-
-
- THEY fell at their desks, pencils still clutched in their
hands. The girls of class 9c were the first to be targeted by Europe's
latest school shooter. Five died, each shot in the head, each a victim
of a young man who had studied in the same room little over a year before.
Their killer was to take another 10 lives, seven in the same suburban secondary
in south-west Germany. But not before the children of 9c figured out whose
finger was on the trigger.
- "It was Tim," the youngsters quickly told the
authorities. "Tim Kretschmer."
-
- The bespectacled 17-year-old former pupil walked into
Albertville Secondary in Winnenden, near Stuttgart, at 9.30am on Wednesday
armed with a 9mm Beretta he had stolen from his gun enthusiast father and
wearing a K4-Schutz bulletproof vest and the black fatigues of Germany's
elite forces, the Kommando Spezialkräfte. Former classmates thought
the teenager was playing some sick joke until, without saying a word,
he opened fire.
-
- For four hours the youngster was to terrorise the suburbs
of wealthy Baden-Wurttenberg, the land in the south-west corner of Germany
best known for its high-class spas, woodland walks and Mercedes cars.
-
- He killed nine pupils at Albertville, all but one a girl,
and three teachers, all women, in less than 10 minutes. He then shot and
killed three bystanders as he tried to escape, before taking his own life
after a shootout with police.
-
- Even after a spate of such shootings across the continent,
most recently in Finland, and only seven years ago in Erfurt, eastern Germany,
most of the pupils were still at a loss to understand what had happened
to them. One stood outside his school holding a piece of cardboard on which
was written: "God. Where were you?" The local paper took a simpler
line: "Warum?", read its headline. "Why?"
-
- Authorities late last week began to think they had something
of an answer for the paper. Kretschmer, announced minister of justice Heribert
Rech, had left a message on a chatroom the night before he launched his
assault on Albertville. He said he was "fed up of his life" and
added that "everyone laughs at me, no one recognises my potential".
Chillingly, the post went on: "I have weapons here and tomorrow morning
I will go to my former school and I will really administer a grilling."
-
- Police, however, by the weekend had come to the view
the post was probably a hoax. "Some crazy person obviously put out
this dreadful false message," a red-faced Rech admitted. The internet
posting, however, did tally with early descriptions of Kretschmer's state
of mind in the days and weeks up to the events of Wednesday. It emerged
that Kretschmer had been suffering from depression, even attending a clinic
and receiving medication for the condition.
-
- The 17-year-old had far from excelled at Albertville.
His parents his father Joerg was a wealthy owner of a packaging firm
employing 150 people had removed him from the state secondary in
2007 and sent him to a private school. His grades were poor and teachers
were unimpressed.
-
- The Kretschmers hired a tutor. She felt the boy had problems.
"He was a really strange boy introverted and closed," she
told German newspapers. "But he did love his cat."
-
- Kretschmer tried sport especially table tennis
but wasn't very good. Over the years he became more and more interested
in just two passions: violent computer games and guns. The teenager was
obsessed with Counter-Strike, a 'shoot 'em up' game in which special forces
have to kill terrorists to win. He was good, his few friends said. He was
also, they added, a fine shot.
-
- Schoolboy Dustin Schleehaus knew Kretschmer for more
than a decade. On German television he said: "In school he was always
very quiet. At home he was aggressive, particularly when he was shooting
pistols and airsoft guns.
-
- "He loved shooting at targets with his airsoft gun
with plastic pellets. He used to do it in the cellar. And he always hit
the bullseye unfortunately.
-
- "At school he hardly ever talked. Sometimes he listened
to the teachers, sometimes he didn't, as if he was completely somewhere
else. But I still wouldn't ever have imagined he would do something like
that, because he was so quiet
-
- "Maybe his life wasn't perfect. Even though his
parents were well-off and he got everything that he wanted. But he generally
stayed cooped up at home, he never went out in the evening. I think that
he played a lot on his computer, on Counter-Strike. He didn't have many
friends. They only really liked him because of his cash."
-
- A 19-year-old from Kretschmer's home village of Leuterbach
said the teenager's passion for guns drove away some of his playmates.
-
- He said: "My parents knew his parents. They begged
me to play with him because he had no friends.
-
- "Tim had at least 30 airsoft guns on the wall of
his room. His father had even built him a shooting range in the cellar.
He always shot at us with the airsoft pistol and wouldn't stop. It really
hurt! We didn't want to play with him any more."
-
- Kretschmer soon tired of his airsoft guns. Another friend
explained: "His father was in a shooting club. He loved his father's
Beretta."
-
- Police officers, meanwhile, have begun to wonder if there
may have been some sexual motive at play. Most of Kretschmer's victims
were women or girls.
-
- Rech, the interior minister, said: "The gunman killed
eight schoolgirls and one boy and shot dead three female teachers in the
school building. He also injured a further seven schoolgirls. The fact
that the vast majority were female victims is notable. The killer shot
most of his victims in the head, which shows that they weren't random targets."
-
- There was speculation in German newspapers this week
that the teenager had been rejected by one particular girl at Albertville,
but it was not clear if she was among the victims. A neighbour said the
boy had made misogynistic remarks.
-
- Witnesses clearly thought he was targeting girls, especially
in 9c. The dead there included Selina Dogan, Chantal Schill and Jana Schober,
all aged between 14 and 16. One survivor, a boy identified only as Patrick
S, said: "We were in a German lesson when Tim suddenly came into the
classroom. He was dressed in black and armed.
-
- "At first I thought it was a joke. Then he started
shooting. He didn't say anything, just fired. There was a crazy amount
of shots. My classmates were falling down around me.
-
- "We pushed the desks over and hid behind them. I
suddenly realised I had been shot. In the back, arm and cheek.
-
- "All of a sudden he was gone. We then barricaded
the door. And then I saw my classmate Chantal. She was sitting at the door
dead."
-
- Another pupil in 9c, a 14-year-old girl called Selina,
told German tabloid Bild she was sure Kretschmer was looking for girls.
She said: "I was sitting at the front of the class but saw him as
he came in the door at the back. He started shooting.
-
- "I threw myself to the ground and pulled my friends
down with me. We tipped the desks over and hid behind, screaming. I saw
that Jana, who was sitting two rows behind me, had been hit blood
was coming out of her nose but she was still sitting at her desk.
-
- "Later she fell to the floor and a lake of blood
formed around her. She was still twitching it was awful.
-
- "Our classroom used to be 10d, which was Tim's classroom
when he was at the school. Maybe that is why he came to us it still
says 10d on the door."
-
- The 14-year-old said her teacher, Ms Braun, helped shut
the door as Kretschmer went outside to reload. He shot the woman through
the door, hitting her hand.
-
- Other members of staff were not so lucky. Three, all
women, were found dead. Their bodies, witnesses said, blocked doors. They
had tried to put themselves between Kretschmer and their charges.
-
- Germany has strict gun laws. Police were yesterday understood
to be considering whether they would be able to charge Kretschmer's father
with any offence. As the registered owner of 14 weapons, he was supposed
to keep them secure.
-
- There was little debate about further tightening the
law. Some politicians renewed calls for metal detectors at schools. But
others pointed out that the system had protected some children. Kretschmer,
they said, could have killed far more people. He is believed to have fired
just 100 of his 600 rounds of ammunition.
-
- The school's principal, moreover, was able to evacuate
pupils quickly using a secret codeword. "Frau Koma is coming,"
he announced over school loudspeakers, telling staff to get their pupils
out.
-
- The Greens and Social Democrats in Germany called for
more training for teachers and more psychologists in school to help spot
the symptoms of a potential killer sooner.
-
- One friend, meanwhile, suggested Kretschmer may well
have been inspired by the killing of 10 people in Alabama the day before
he picked up his Beretta.
-
- The friend said: "He liked games like 'Counter strike'.
It wouldn't surprise me if he spent the whole night before the spree on
his computer playing games, heard about the shooting in the USA in the
morning and then went to school."
-
-
- The full article contains 1595 words and appears in Scotland
On Sunday newspaper.
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