Hostage siege “al-Qaida member” killed by police

A GUNMAN claiming to be a member of al-Qaida who held up to 16 people hostage inside a classroom was killed by police after he began firing his gun.

Harold Kilpatrick, aged 26, held up to 16 students and their teacher at gunpoint for more than nine hours on Wednesday.

Police stormed the building after shots rang out around 10pm.

"Negotiations started and then they broke down and he began to fire. My people went in and took him down. The situation is over," Dyersburg police chief Bobby Williamson said immediately after the gunfire.

Two hostages were injured in the shooting, but it was not clear if they were wounded by police or Kilpatrick, Williamson said.

The wounded students were airlifted to a Memphis hospital, but their injuries were "not life-threatening," he added.

Several hours into the stand-off, Kilpatrick released unharmed three female hostages, one of them pregnant, officials said. However, aside from a pitcher of water and 16 glasses, he made no demands and remained holed up in a second-floor classroom at the Dyersburg State Community College with the remaining hostages, talking to police negotiators through the students, who spoke to investigators on their cell phones.

Police SWAT teams from Dyersburg and nearby Jackson, Tennessee, were called to the college campus shortly before 1pm and sealed off the area. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation were called to the college campus later because of a suicide note in which Kilpatrick stated he was a member of the al-Qaida terror network and planned to shoot several people before taking his own life.

Police believe Kilpatrick, who once attended school in Dyersburg, was visiting his sister, who gave police the suicide note Kilpatrick left at her house.

Throughout the stand-off, Kilpatrick refused to talk to his sister. He was armed with a nine millimetre handgun and a knife.