Milk truck driver kills at least 3 girls, self at Amish school in Pa.

NICKEL MINES, Pa. -- A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and killed at least three girls and apparently himself, authorities said.\nIt was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and similar to an attack just days earlier at a school in Colorado.\nThe gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV, was inside for more than half an hour and had barred the doors with 2x4s with the girls inside, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. By the time officers broke windows to get in, three girls and the gunman were dead, Miller said.\nLancaster County Coroner G. Gary Kirchner initially said six people were killed but later said he wasn't certain. At least seven people were taken to hospitals, including at least three girls in critical condition with gunshot wounds.\nRoberts walked into the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School with a shotgun and handgun, then released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with infants before barring the doors, Miller said.\nThe girls were lined up along a blackboard and their feet were bound, he said.\nA teacher called police at about 10:30 a.m. and reported that a gunman was holding students hostage.\nAbout 11 a.m., Roberts apparently called his wife from a cell phone, saying he was "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago," Miller said. "It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims."\nMoments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Troopers heard gunfire in the building seconds later.\nThe school has about 25 to 30 students in all, ages 6 to 13.\n"It seems as though he wanted to attack young, female victims," Miller said. He released no further details about the grudge Roberts mentioned.\nThe school is among farmlands just outside Nickel Mines, a tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia. Hours after the shootings, about three dozen people in traditional Amish clothing, hats and bonnets stood near the small building, surrounded by a white board fence, as investigators walked in line through fields searching for evidence.\nThe shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man took several girls hostage in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.\n"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.\n"On behalf of Park County and our citizens and our sheriff's office, our hearts go out to that school and the community," he said.