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Web video a link to shootings?

Investigators suspect the shooter foretold the Finland school shooting in Internet postings.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 8, 2007

TUUSULA, Finland - Was it a massacre foretold on YouTube?

An 18-year-old gunman killed seven other students and the principal during a rampage through his high school - and investigators suspect he revealed plans for the carnage in Internet postings in which he urges revolution and grins after taking target practice.

Investigators said the gunman, who was not identified, shot himself in the head after the shooting spree at Jokela High School in Tuusula, 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki. He died later at a hospital.

The teen killed five boys, two girls and the female principal with a .22-caliber pistol, police said. Authorities said one person was wounded by a bullet and about a dozen others suffered cuts and other injuries while fleeing the school, which has about 400 students ages 12 through 18.

Witnesses said the shooter prowled the building looking for victims while shouting slogans for "revolution."

Police Chief Matti Tohkanen said the gunman didn't have a previous criminal record: "He was from an ordinary family."

He said the teen belonged to a gun club and had gotten a license for the pistol Oct. 19.

Gun ownership is fairly common in Finland by European standards, but deadly shootings are rare. Finnish media reported that a school shooting in 1989 involved a 14-year-old boy who killed two other students apparently for teasing him.

Investigators were searching for connections to the shooter and a possible motive in YouTube postings that appeared to reveal plans for Wednesday's deadly attack.

One video, titled "Jokela High School Massacre," showed a picture of what appeared to be the Jokela school and two photos of a young man holding a handgun. Electronic music played in the background with a growling voice singing "I am your apocalypse."

The person who posted the video was identified in the user profile as an 18-year-old man from Finland. The posting was later removed. The profile contained text calling for a "revolution against the system."

Teacher Kim Kiuru said the principal announced over the public address system just before noon that all students should remain in their classrooms.

"After that I saw the gunman running with what appeared to be a small-caliber handgun in his hand through the doors toward me, after which I escaped to the corridor downstairs and ran in the opposite direction," Kiuru told reporters.

"Then my pupils shouted at me out of the windows to ask what they should do and I told them to jump out of the windows ... and all my pupils were saved," Kiuru said.

Student Tuomas Hulkkonen said he knew the gunman well, adding that the teen had been acting strange lately.

"He withdrew into his shell. I had noticed a change in him just recently, and I thought that perhaps he was a bit depressed, or something, but I couldn't imagine that in reality he would do anything like this," Hulkkonen told Finnish TV broadcaster MTV3.

[Last modified November 8, 2007, 00:35:45]