A School Shooting in Amish Country

In what looks to be a copycat crime patterned after last week's school shooting in Colorado, a man walked in to an Amish school in Pennsylvania and killed several people:

A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and killed at least three girls and apparently himself, authorities said.

It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and similar to an attack just days earlier at a school in Colorado.

The gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV, was inside for over half an hour and had barred the doors with 2x4s with the girls inside, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. By the time officers broke windows to get in, three girls and the gunman were dead, Miller said.

Lancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed, but later said he wasn't certain. At least seven people were taken to hospitals, including at least three girls in critical condition with gunshot wounds.

Last year I visited the Amish country around Smicksburg, PA during a quartet tour. It's a beautiful part of the country, and the folks we ran into down there were very friendly. It's hard to believe a situation like this shooting could occur among such peaceful folks.