/ 21 November 2007

School massacre plots hatched on internet

German authorities closed a secondary school in the west of the country on Tuesday after being warned of a plan to carry out a massacre, in the latest of a string of violent plots believed to have been hatched by students in internet chat rooms.

German authorities closed a secondary school in the west of the country on Tuesday after being warned of a plan to carry out a massacre, in the latest of a string of violent plots believed to have been hatched by students in internet chat rooms.

Students and staff at the secondary school in Kaarst, west of Düsseldorf, were sent home following a tip-off from police in Finland where investigations are still under way following the shooting dead of eight people at a school in Tuusula by an 18-year-old this month.

According to German police sources, Finnish authorities found evidence on a closed internet chatroom conversation between several parties which pointed to plans for an attack in Germany. They said they could not rule out a link between the Finland shooting and the plot in Germany, both apparently inspired by the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, but declined to give details.

Tuesday’s incident, along with threats received at a vocational school in Göttingen, was believed to have been linked to the first anniversary yesterday of an attack on a school in Emsdetten, North Rhine-Westphalia, in which an 18-year-old injured 32 in a Columbine-inspired shooting spree before killing himself.

On Friday, police in Cologne apparently foiled another plot by two students to launch a massacre in their school using crossbows, air guns and molotov cocktails, which was also planned to coincide with the Emsdetten anniversary. The police have come under criticism for sending the two students home after questioning. The younger boy later committed suicide by throwing himself under a tram.

German police and education authorities have pointed to a worrying growth in copycat incidents as well as a sharp rise in the number of pupils sharing information on the internet, and goading and inspiring each other into carrying out attacks.

The Finnish killer Pekka-Eric Auvinen was believed to have been in touch via the internet with a Pennsylvania teenager who had been planning a Columbine-style attack. This week a British woman alerted police in Norway to a massacre threat against a school in Askoey near Bergen after seeing a suspicious video of on YouTube.

The Columbine massacre in Littleton, Colorado, in which two students killed 13 people before killing themselves, has served as a catalyst for a series of attacks across the United States and abroad, particularly in Germany.

”The phenomenon of massacres by young people in schools in Germany has only existed since Columbine,” said Frank Robertz, a Berlin criminologist and author of a book on violence in schools.

The 18-year-old in the incident at Cologne’s Georg Büchner school, who is now undergoing psychiatric treatment, had posted pictures of the Columbine massacre on his personal page on the school’s internet site Schuelervz.net.

Rolf B chose five photographs from the 1999 massacre and had told several fellow pupils: ”On Tuesday there’ll be a mighty explosion.” A search of his home revealed a ”death list” of 17 teachers and pupils whom he apparently planned to kill, before — he told police — he changed his mind. Both pupils had shared details of the plans in internet chatrooms.

Germany’s worst school massacre occurred in April 2002 when 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser shot 12 teachers, a secretary, two pupils and a policeman at his school, the Gutenberg Gymnasium in Erfurt, before killing himself.

The Erfurt massacre led to the introduction in some states of emergency plans to deal with shooting incidents.

In many schools, pupils and teachers now routinely practise drills in which they are told a specific message over the public announcement system such as: ”The canteen is closed.” On hearing the message, they are supposed to go to their classrooms, draw the curtains and lock doors.

Plans are also under way to set up an internet platform on which the public can supply information about possible attacks.

Klaus Jansen, head of the Association of Detectives, said that because of the frequency of incidents pupils were becoming more astute at recognising warning signs.

”The sensitivities seem to be growing,” he told a German newspaper. ”Pupils seem to increasingly understand how important it is to let security authorities in on the picture.” – Guardian Unlimited Â