Terror on campus: Students dive for cover as gunman carrying AK47 opens fire in library of University of Texas

A man wearing a ski mask opened fire with an AK-47 inside a University of Texas library yesterday morning, then fatally shot himself, police said.

Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old maths sophomore wearing a ski mask and a dark suit, began shooting near a fountain in front of the UT Tower.

The site is infamous for being the site of one of America's deadliest shooting rampages more than four decades ago, when a gunman ascended the clock tower and fired down on dozens of people.

He then turned the gun on himself. No one else was killed or injured - despite there being many people around.

The nearly 50,000-student campus was put on lockdown while officers with bomb-sniffing dogs carried out a building-by-building manhunt for a possible second suspect.

 

Troops get into position after the shooting. Police said the gunman opened fire then fatally shot himself, but police were searching for a possible second suspect

Austin PD officers stand at the intersection of 21st and Speedway, in front of the Perry-Castaneda Library, where shots were fired Tuesday morning

However authorities have now determined that Tooley acted alone. The confusion arose because shots were fired in multiple locations, and officers received varying descriptions from witnesses, campus police Chief Robert Dahlstrom said.

There was no clue as to Tooley's motive.

Within hours of Tuesday's gunfire, the school issued an all-clear notice, but the university remained closed, and the area around the library was still considered a crime scene.

'Our campus is safe,' school President Bill Powers said.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo expected the school to be 'completely open and back to normal' by Wednesday morning.

Campus police spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said a man fired an automatic weapon on the sixth floor of the Perry-Castaneda Library, then shot himself dead. Acevedo said the weapon was an AK-47.

Acevedo said police were investigating what he described as a second crime scene outside the library where shots also were fired.

Before reaching the library, the gunman apparently walked unheeded for several blocks wearing a mask and dark clothing and carrying the automatic weapon, witnesses said.

Within hours a Facebook page in Tooley's name had been created.

The page showed just one status update, which read: 'Today was not a good day. Colton Tooley had to use his AK.'

The profile picture simply showed the logo of the University of Texas: an orange graphic of a longhorn. Beneath it was written: 'This is exactly who you think it is.'

The only information included in the description was: 'Former 19-year-old sophomore at UT, majoring in Math.'

Two links had been added to the page - one to a news story about the shooting.

A bizarre discussion had also been started on the page under the topic 'Magic', where users began discussing how AK-47s work.

When other users accused them of being 'sick', an argument kicked off. 'How is this a joke to any of you. you guys f****** make me sick [sic],' one user wrote.

Barely an hour after the status was updated, the profile was removed - but not before 88 people had pressed the 'like' button on the page.

Randall Wilhite, an adjunct law professor at the university, said he was driving to class when he saw ‘students start scrambling behind wastebaskets, trees and monuments,’ and then a young man carrying an assault rifle sprinting along the street.

‘He was running right in front of me ... and he shot what I thought were three more shots ... not at me. In my direction, but not at me, clearly not at me,’ Wilhite said.

The professor said the gunman had the opportunity to shoot several students and Wilhite, but he did not.

The university posted a notice on its emergency information website emphasizing that the school remained closed and that the area around the Perry-Castenada Library was still an active crime scene.

Tuesday’s shooting is not the first at the school, which is one of the largest universities in the country.

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman went to the 28th floor observation deck at the UT clock tower in the middle of campus and began shooting at people below. He killed 16 people and wounded nearly three dozen before police killed him about 90 minutes after the siege began.

The Perry-Castaneda Library is one of several on the campus and is one of the busiest undergraduate libraries.

Gunman: Colton Tooley, in an undated photo released by the Texas Department of Public Safety yesterday

Police officers escort a student to safety near the Perry-Castaneda Library, after a shooting at the University of Texas in Austin

Sick: A Facebook page set up after the shooting in Colton Tooley's name. It has since been removed from the website

Austin PD officers stand at the intersection of 21st and Speedway, in front of the Perry-Castaneda Library, where shots were fired Tuesday morning

Troops get into position after the shooting. Police said the gunman opened fire then fatally shot himself, but police were searching for a possible second suspect

University of Texas President William Powers Jr, centre, walks across the campus mall in Austin with Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, right, and an unidentified law enforcement officer

Students gather on campus after the shooting

13 students injured in dormitory rampage-Students hurt in China cleaver attack

A recent wave of violence at schools has caused widespread fears over the safety of students in China



A policeman shows teachers how to apprehend an attacker at a school in Beijing

More than 10 men armed with knives burst into two dormitories at a vocational college early on Wednesday and slashed nine students, two of them seriously, sparking new fears in a country already on edge following a series of horrific assaults.

Four students had been wounded in an earlier confrontation between the two groups, bringing the total number of injured to 13, according to local authorities.



The predawn attack took place in Haikou, the capital of South China's island province of Hainan, when more than 10 men burst into two dormitories at the Hainan Institute of Science and Technology and randomly started hacking at students.

The assailants attacked a guard and disabled a security camera before gaining access to the dormitories.

Among the wounded, two were severely injured, with one student having his hand cut off. Following eight hours of surgery at the Haikou City People's Hospital, their conditions were not considered to be life threatening.

Students from the school, who accompanied the injured to the hospital, said the violence began late on Tuesday when a confrontation took place at a food stall outside the campus with some men from the surrounding villages.

Four students were attacked with knives in the incident and the police were called, they said, but left after questioning the students.

The villagers then called for reinforcements and attacked the school at about 2:30 am on Wednesday, witnesses said.

According to school authorities, all students were required to return to the college before 8.30 pm on Wednesday to assist the police with their investigation.

The attack follows five separate assaults against school children, some as young as 3, in the last two months, which have left 17 dead and more than 50 wounded, including some adults.

The violence has resulted in security being tightened at schools across China, with nervous parents accompanying their children to and from school, while police and security guards are now permanently posted at school gates.

Thirteen vocational students were hurt in China Wednesday -- including one who had a hand chopped off -- when they were attacked by youths with cleavers, after a string of violent school assaults.

The incident just after midnight on the southern island of Hainan comes after a series of savage attacks at schools and kindergartens around the country that have left 17 dead, including 15 young children.

At around midnight, students at the Hainan Technology and Vocational Institute in the city of Haikou got into an argument with the youths as the students held a barbecue near their school, the Xinhua state news agency said.

Four students were injured in the initial clash but a group of youths stormed into the school's dormitory two hours later, attacking nine more, it said.

According to the China News Service, one student had a hand cut off during the clash, while the others were slightly injured.

There was a history of bad blood and altercations involving students at the institute and the local youths, the report added.

Vocational education is generally for students in their late teens or early 20s.

A recent wave of violence has caused widespread fears over public safety in China with more than 80 injured in five previous attacks at schools and kindergartens over the past two months.

All the previous attacks were carried out by lone assailants, two of whom committed suicide. A third, a former doctor who killed eight children on March 23, has been tried and executed, while another attacker was sentenced to death on Saturday.

In response to the violence, police and schools have been ordered to beef up security in and around campuses amid fears of more copycat attacks by disturbed or disgruntled assailants.

Last week, Premier Wen Jiabao said long-standing social concerns were partially to blame for the attacks.

"We need to resolve the deep-seated causes that have resulted in these problems," Wen said in an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television.

"This includes handling social contradictions, resolving disputes and strengthening mediation at the grassroots level."

In a separate incident this week, a man who had been drinking alcohol barged into a primary school classroom with a knife and a home-made gun in northern China's Inner Mongolia region, China National Radio reported Wednesday.

The man was wrestled to the ground by a teacher and detained by police in the incident Monday, it said. It made no mention of any students being hurt.

The man had served a previous prison term, said the report, which did not specify what crime he had committed or give his name or age.

Fresh horror as Chinese farmer attacks schoolchildren with hammer in THIRD copycat rampage in three days

The latest attack comes after a knife-wielding man attacked chiildren in Leizhou No.1 Primary School on Wednesday in Leizhou, Guangdong province of China. Here, an injured student is taken to hospital after the attack

Experts say Wednesday's attack was a copycat rampage of two other episodes at Chinese schools in the past month

The latest attack comes after a knife-wielding man attacked chiildren in Leizhou No.1 Primary School on Wednesday in Leizhou, Guangdong province of China. Here, an injured student is taken to hospital after the attack

After the spate of copycat rampages, many schools are said to be concerned they will be targeted next

Following the attack yesterday, Chinese policemen have travelled to schools to show teachers and school workers how to defend themselves if they are targeted

Concern: Worried parents gather outside the gate of the kindergarten where a class of 4-year-olds were attacked

A farmer attacked and injured five primary school children with a hammer in eastern China today before burning himself to death.

The sickening attack is the latest in a string of horrific assaults on young students over the last month, state media reported.

The attacker used a motorcycle to break down a gate of the school in Shandong province's Weifang city, struck a teacher who tried to block him and then used the hammer to attack the children, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The assailant then grabbed two children before pouring petrol over his body and setting himself on fire.
Xinhua said teachers at the Shangzhuang primary school were able to pull the children away to safety, and none of the injured children had life-threatening injuries.

Xinhua identified the attacker as Wang Yonglai, a local farmer, but had no further details.



China has been reeling from a series of attacks on schoolchildren, with the latest incident coming just a day after a 47-year-old unemployed man rampaged through a kindergarten in Taixing city in Jiangsu province, wounding 29 students aged four or five years old, five of them seriously.


Horror: Drops of blood are seen on the steps of the kindergarten in Taixing, where a knifeman injured 28 children, two teachers and a security guard  on Wednesday

Scene: A policeman enters the Zhongxin Kindergarten, where 31 people were injured by a knife-wielding man

Scene: A policeman enters the Zhongxin Kindergarten, where 31 people were injured by a knife-wielding man

Former community doctor Zheng Minsheng, 41, was held by police in a courtroom before he was executed on Thursday for murdering eight schoolchildren

Experts said that a possible copycat rampage had been triggered by similar incidents on Wednesday and last month.
They said the wave of school attacks falls amid poor care for the mentally unstable and growing feelings of social injustice in the fast-changing country.

The attacker in Taixing, identified as Xu Yuyuan, pushed his way into a classroom with an eight-inch knife after two teachers and a security guard failed to stop him.

Xu had been a salesman in a local insurance company until he was fired in 2001, but since then has remained jobless, Xinhua said.

On Wednesday, a man in the southern city of Leizhou broke into a primary school and wounded 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack.

The suspect, 33-year-old Chen Kangbing, was a former teacher who had been on sick leave since 2006 for mental health problems.

The assault left fourth and fifth graders with stab wounds on their heads, backs and arms, but none was in life-threatening condition.

That attack came on the same day a man was executed for killing eight children outside an elementary school last month in the south-eastern city of Nanping.
It was not known if Xu knew about the previous day's attack in Guangdong, but Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said these sorts of violent attacks often happen in clusters because one may trigger copycat attacks.

'It's like suicide, which is another type of mental health problem that can spread in a community,' said Zhou.

'Normally, with these kind of violent events we hope the media won't blow them up too much. Because that tends to make it spread.'

The attack in March shocked China because eight children died and the assailant had no known history of mental illness.

At his trial, Zheng Minsheng, 42, said he killed because he had been upset after being jilted by a woman and treated badly by her wealthy family.

Another attack earlier this month occurred when a mentally ill man hacked to death a child and an elderly woman with a meat cleaver near a school in southern Guangxi, and wounded five other people, including students.

The series of school attacks in China in recent years have mostly been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness, leading to calls for improved security.China's inadequate mental health network has left millions of unstable people without the help they need.

Many otherwise healthy Chinese also feel frustrated and powerless because they aren't able to adapt to the constant social upheaval and because they believe the changes favour the corrupt.

That kind of anger has occasionally erupted in mass violence and in isolated attacks.

It is not known why schools are targeted.

A survey of mental health in four Chinese provinces published in the Lancet in June concluded that China likely had about 173 million adults nationwide with mental health disorders.
The report claimed that most, 158 million, had never gotten any professional help for their problems.

Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has said China's sweeping social changes might be partially to blame for Zheng Minsheng's anti-social rage.

'A social environment lacking fairness and justice, in which those who abide by the rules gain nothing, while those who do not can profit, could bring about resistance by the weak against the entire society,' Yu was quoted as saying by the Southern Weekly newspaper a few weeks after the attack.

Zheng was executed on Thursday, just weeks after his crime. Zhou, the Renmin University professor, said China's use of capital punishment helps fuel the cycle of violence by enforcing a belief in 'blood for blood'.

He said China should abolish the death penalty, improve human rights and make its justice system more fair and transparent.


After a 2004 attack at a school in Beijing that left nine students dead, the central government mandated tighter school security nationwide.

The Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a fax today asking whether the attacks would result in orders to step up school security.

In Thursday's attack, in which a teacher stabbed fourth and fifth graders in their heads, backs and arms, Xinhua said the suspect suffered from mental illness and had been on sick leave from another school since February 2006.

He is now in police custody.

Man burns himself in latest China school attack-Deadly school attacks in China

A student is seen recovering at a hospital following an attack the day before by a knifeman at his primary school


The primary school in Leizhou, Guangdong province, where a man stabbed several young students


A security guard stands at the entrance to a Beijing school

A farmer attacked children with a hammer at a primary school in eastern China on Friday before setting himself on fire in the latest in a series of apparently copy-cat attacks, state media said.

The rampage in Shandong province left five children and a teacher hurt but in stable condition, Xinhua news agency said, and came as schools across China stepped up security over fears of further attacks.

Before the incident, China had seen three stabbing frenzies at schools in the past month, including two this week alone, by mentally disturbed adults that left eight children dead and nearly 50 injured.

The attacks underscore how China -- which has enjoyed lower violent crime rates than the West -- faces a growing public safety threat from disgruntled individuals amid rising mental illness rates and looser social controls.



In the Shandong attack, farmer Wang Yonglai broke through a gate at the Shangzhuang Primary School in Weifang city with his motorcycle in the morning and began hitting children with the hammer.

He also struck the foot of one teacher who tried to block him, Xinhua said.

Wang then poured petrol over himself and ignited it while holding two of the children in his arms. Teachers pulled the children to safety and the man died at the scene, the report said.

On Thursday, a jobless man injured 29 children and three adults with a knife used to slaughter pigs in an attack at a kindergarten in the eastern city of Taixing.

Police said the man carried out the attack out of anger over a "series of business and personal humiliations", according to Xinhua.

A day earlier, a 33-year-old teacher on sick leave due to mental problems injured 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack at a primary school in southern China's Guangdong province.

The assailants in both of those attacks were arrested and all victims were said to be out of life-threatening condition.

The Guangdong attack occurred just hours after authorities in Fujian province in the southeast executed a former doctor for stabbing to death eight children and injuring five others on March 23 in a fit of rage after he split with his girlfriend.

In response, authorities across China have ordered stepped-up security at schools, increased police patrols near school grounds, and tighter monitoring of people known to be mentally ill, reports from around the country said.

Schools in several provinces have been ordered to employ measures including full-time security staff, barring all unauthorised visitors, and devising emergency evacuation plans, the reports said.

Violent crime has increased in China as tight controls on society have been loosened in concert with the country's transition from a state-planned to a capitalist economy.

Studies also have cited a rise in mental disorders, some linked to stress as society becomes more fast-paced and old communist-era supports were scrapped.

A study last year estimated that 173 million adults in China have some type of mental disorder -- 91 percent of whom had never received professional help.

China has witnessed a series of recent assaults by attackers on schools. Many have been blamed on personal grudges or people with psychiatric problems:

_ April 30, 2010: A farmer attacked and injured five kindergarten students with a hammer in Shandong province's Weifang city before burning himself to death. The man struck a teacher who tried to block him and then used the hammer to attack the children. None of the children had life-threatening injuries.

_ April 29, 2010: A 47-year-old unemployed man attacked a classroom of 4-year-olds at a kindergarten in Jiangsu province, wounding 29 of them. Two teachers and a security guard were also hurt.

_ April 28, 2010: A man wielding a knife broke into a primary school in Leizhou city in Guangdong province in southern China and stabbed 18 students and a teacher.

_ April 12, 2010: Yang Jiaqin, 40, hacked to death a second grader and an elderly woman near an elementary school in Xizhen village of the southern Guangxi region. The attack came one day before Yang's family was scheduled to send him to a hospital for psychological treatment. He had been diagnosed with a mood disorder.

_ March 23, 2010: Zheng Minsheng, 42, killed eight children in a knife attack at the Nanping Experimental Elementary School in south China's Fujian province. Zheng was executed April 28.

_ March 2, 2009: Xu Ximei, 40, hacked two preschoolers, aged 4 and 6, to death with a kitchen knife and injured three other children and a grandmother at a primary school and in a yard in Mazhan, a village in Guangdong province. Xu was believed to be mentally disabled.

_ Feb. 24, 2008: Chen Wenzhen, a former student at the Leizhou No. 2 Middle School in Guangdong province, stabbed to death a boy and a girl, then killed himself. Chen had dropped out half a year earlier because he suffered from headaches and could not concentrate on his studies, state media said.

_ June 13, 2007: A man state media identified only by his surname, Su, broke into the Chiling Primary School in Longtang township in Guangdong and killed a 9-year-old boy with a kitchen knife. Three other students were seriously wounded. The attacker had been seen quarreling with the boy's parents in the past.

_ May 24, 2006: Yang Xinlong hacked a neighbor to death in the village of Luoying in central China's Henan province, then took 19 elementary school students hostage and killed one before police subdued him. Yang was hospitalized after police shot him when he refused to surrender.

_ Nov. 25, 2004: Yan Yiming, 21, broke into a Chinese high school dormitory and stabbed nine boys to death in Ruzhou, Henan province. Yan's mother turned him in to police after he attempted suicide on the day following the attack. He was executed two months later.

_ Aug. 4, 2004: Xu Heping, 51, a part-time gatekeeper at a Beijing kindergarten killed one student and slashed 14 others and three teachers. State media said at the time Xu had a history of schizophrenia. The attack, near the compound where President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders live and work, prompted the government to order stepped up security at schools nationwide.