A teenager who called himself "a natural predator" shot and killed seven of his classmates and the principal inside a public high school here Wednesday, police said, one day after posting a video on YouTube in which he foreshadowed a massacre.The midday attack, which ended with the 18-year-old gunman taking his own life, jolted this Scandinavian country of 5.3 million people. A nation of hunters and sportsmen, Finland has the third-highest rate of firearm ownership in the world. But gun-related crimes are extremely rare, and Finnish schools have never seen the need to take security measures that have become common in the United States.
Witnesses said the mass killing at the 400-student Jokela secondary school in Tuusula, a suburb about 30 miles north of Helsinki, followed a script that resembled the massacres at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 and Virginia Tech University this year.
Shortly before noon, the smooth-faced gunman methodically opened fire as he walked through the hallways carrying a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol, witnesses told Finnish media. Reacting immediately, the school's principal issued orders on the loudspeaker for teachers to lock the doors to their classrooms. Some students tried to find safety by turning out the lights, while others leapt out of windows.
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