Third text to train about school news in Finland ...

Gunman opens fire at school in Finland, 9 dead By LARRY McSHANE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Updated Tuesday, September 23rd 2008, 12:06 PM Mustikkamaa/AP Police investigate the scene of a gunman's deadly rampage Tuesday at a vocational schoolin western Finland. A student at a Finnish catering school gunned down 10 classmates in a murderous rampage Tuesday that ended when he killed himself, authorities said. The masked gunman launched his killing spree just one day after Finnish authorities questioned him about his violent YouTube postings - including one of him firing a handgun at a shooting range. Matti Juhani Saari, a 22-year-old student at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head hours after the shooting, authorities said. Saari - dressed in black and carrying a large bag - walked into a classroom where students were taking an exam and opened fire, unloading shot after shot in just minutes. "Within a short space of time, I heard several dozen rounds of shots," school janitor Jukka Forsberg told YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting System. "I saw some female students who were wailing and moaning, and one managed to escape out the back door." Saari was toting a .22-caliber handgun and explosives in his bag. Authorities said he used the explosives to ignite a fire during the shooting; the bodies of some of his victims were burned beyond recognition. Two others were wounded, including a female student who was shot in the head but survived. She was taken to a hospital about two hours away from the Finnish town of 14,500 people where the attack occurred. "It is a tragic day," said Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, comparing the carnage to a November mass murder of eight at Finland's Jokela High School. The shooting is the deadliest peacetime attack in Finnish history, and the worst on a school campus since the April 2007 massacre of 32 students at Virginia Tech. Saari reportedly posted four YouTube clips of himself shooting handguns in the last three weeks, drawing the attention of Finnish authorities. One appeared with an accompanying message: "Whole life is war and whole life is pain. And you will fight alone in your personal war." He also listed clips from the 1999 Columbine High School slayings as among his favorite videos. Finnish authorities released Saari yesterday after their interview because there were no legal grounds to hold him, Finnish Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said. Revisions: Vocabulary: - weapons - mental illness - crimes - violence at school