Teenager kills man in school gun rampage

A teenager killed a man then turned the gun on himself today as dozens of people scrambled for cover at a school in a remote Australian Aboriginal community.

Police were called yesterday after the 19-year-old man began shooting at the school in the Yiyili Aboriginal community, said Western Australia Police spokeswoman Ros Weatherall.

Police said about 40 people hid in the school and another 30 in a nearby creek bed as the gunman fired numerous shots.

When police arrived, they found the bodies of a 35-year-old man and the gunman at the school, Weatherall said. The motive was not known, she said.

Counsellors were called in to the settlement, about 1,250 miles north west of Western Australia state capital Perth and 75 miles west of Halls Creek.

School shootings are rare in Australia, a country that clamped down on gun ownership in the aftermath of a deadly 1996 shooting spree at a historic convict settlement site on the southern island state of Tasmania that left 35 people dead.