7 Dead, 10 Hurt After Teen Opens Fire at High School in Finland

The siege was over just after 2:00 PM British time authorities said.

A video was posted on YouTube predicting a school massacre in Finland. Image courtesy: YouTube

(TUUSULA, Finland) - Seven people are dead this morning after a gunman opened fire at Jokela High School in southern Finland, just hours after a video was posted on YouTube predicting a school massacre.

"At this moment its seven (deaths) or more, higher," Dr Eero Hirvensalo, the head of the medical response team, told Reuters.

The video, according to various media reports, is set to hard-driving music, and shows a still photo of a school that appears to be Jokela High School. The photo then fragments to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a gun at the camera.

Three people were wounded in the shooting, according to early reports. One of those shot was the school principal, said Tuula Panula, spokeswoman for the Tuusula municipality, some 40 miles from the Finnish capital Helsinki.

"He (the gunman) was moving systematically through the school hallways, knocking on the doors and shooting through the doors," Kim Kiuru, a teacher at the school, said at the scene.

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Finland has the third-largest per capita ratio of handgun ownership in the world, and violent incidents at Finnish schools are rare. According to Finnish media, there have been four stabbings at schools since 1999. None of which caused fatalities.

Salem-News.com will have more on this story as soon as it becomes available.