Charles Carl Roberts IV

Truck driver kills three girls in Amish school shooting:

32-year-old truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV, armed with three guns, a stun gun, two knives and a bag holding 600 rounds of ammunition, stormed an Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He shot and killed three girls execution style, wounded eight others and took his own life.

The suspect called 911 and “made a declaration that if the state police didn’t leave the property he would start shooting people within 10 seconds.”

“Within seconds, he just started firing in rapid succession.”

Police then stormed the schoolhouse through the windows and found Roberts dead, Miller said. He had fired at least one shotgun blast at police.

The entire incident was supposedly revenge for an incident that happened 20 years ago.

The Bart, Pennsylvania, resident had three children, and left several notes for his family “along the lines of suicide notes,” Miller said.

The notes were “rambling” and “didn’t make much sense,” Miller said.

Roberts did not respond when police at the scene attempted to communicate with him, and troopers were preparing to storm the schoolhouse before the shooting began, Miller said.

Roberts’ wife tried to call him when she found the notes, Miller said. He returned the call on his cell phone, told her he wouldn’t be coming home and “that he was acting out to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago.”

What could have possibly happened when he was 12 for him to take it out on defenseless Amish school girls? He released the boys so he intentionally targeted the girls.

Miller said that during the attack, Roberts apparently told students to line up in front of the blackboard. He began to tie his female captives’ feet together. He let the 15 boys in the classroom leave.

Miller said Roberts also allowed an adult female who was pregnant to leave with three other adult females who had infant children with them.

The teacher who was released was able to alert authorities, Miller said.

“Apparently, there was some sort of issue in his past that for some reason, he wanted to exact revenge against female victims. That’s all I can tell you right now,” Miller said.

Miller said Roberts’ grudge did not appear to involve the Amish community and that he may have chosen his target out of convenience, perhaps thinking “getting into a school like this was maybe just a little bit easier.”

And was Roberts influenced by the Platte Canyon High School siege? He had to have been at least partially influenced by it. That’s too much of a coincidence.

I’ll have more to say once more details become available.