German Teen Shoots Headmaster, Himself After Being Suspended

ROSENHEIM, Germany — A 16-year-old boy shot the director of his boarding school Thursday after being suspended for “rebellious behavior,” then turned the large-caliber pistol on himself, police said.

The ninth-grader had been sent home Wednesday, and a test showed he had used drugs. He returned to the school Thursday, encountered the school director in a stairwell and pumped several bullets into him, then fired several times at his own head, police said.

Both the student and the 57-year-old director suffered life-threatening head wounds and were taken to hospitals by helicopter, authorities said. The names of the student and the director were not made public.

After being suspended, the student had been taken to his parents’ home near the school in the southern German town of Brannenburg, near the Austrian border, police said. Early Thursday, the director received results of a test that showed the student had used drugs.

School authorities were to have decided soon on whether the student should be permanently expelled.

The school has 94 students from throughout Germany who range in age from 12 to 18.

The student had been in a computer science class taught by the school director. It was not clear how he obtained the gun.

The shooting is the latest in a string of violent incidents at German schools that has shocked a nation unaccustomed to such crimes.