Finland school gunman kills 8, self

HELSINKI, Finland, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- An 18-year-old gunman killed eight people in a school in southern Finland Wednesday before fatally wounding himself with a shot to the head, police said.

One of those killed was the school's head mistress and the others were students -- five boys and two girls -- The Telegraph reported. The gunman, identified as Pekka-Eric Auvinen, shot himself and died later after being taken to a hospital, the British newspaper said.

A doctor at Toolo Hospital said 10 other people sustained non-life-threatening injuries, Newsroom Finland reported.

Student Miro Lukinmaa said once the rampage started "suddenly people began running and shots began raining down."

"I saw injured people lying in the corridor. We started to run and followed (the crowd) in panic," Lukinmaa said.

Police said they did not return fire when Auvinen fired one shot at them after they surrounded Jokela School Center, the Finnish news agency said.

Kim Kiuru, a teacher at the school, said the gunman was a "militant radical" interested in both extreme-left and extreme-right movements.

Student Tuomas Hulkkonen told the Helsingen Sanomat newspaper the gunman had recently started drawing pictures of shootings.

A video clip called Jokela High School Massacre was posted by Auvinen -- who reportedly called himself Sturmgeist89 -- Tuesday on the Internet YouTube site, showing a still image of the school jumping to an unidentified man pointing a pistol at the camera.