Gunman opens fire at Oregon college in mass killing

By Shelby Sebens ROSEBURG, Ore. (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire at a community college in southern Oregon on Thursday, killing 13 people and wounding some 20 others before he was shot to death by police, state and county officials said, in the latest mass killing to rock a U.S. school. There were conflicting reports on the number of dead and wounded in the shooting rampage at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, which began shortly after 10:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT). The state's attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, told the local NBC affiliate that 13 people had been slain, 20 wounded and the shooter was killed. Rosenblum's office did not return calls seeking comment. Governor Kate Brown said the suspect was a 20-year-old man but he was not identified further by authorities. CNN reported that four guns belonging to the shooter were recovered from the scene. The massacre is the latest in a series of mass shootings at U.S. college campuses, movie theatres, military bases and churches in recent years. The killings have fuelled demands for more gun control in the United States, where ownership of firearms is protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and better care for the mentally ill. Kortney Moore, 18, told the local News Review newspaper that she was in her writing class in Snyder Hall when a gunshot came through the window and struck her teacher in the head. Moore said the gunman told people to get on the ground, then asked them to stand up and state their religion before he started shooting. Student Cassandra Welding told CNN that she heard 35 to 40 shots. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said the gunman was slain in an exchange of gunfire with police officers. "It's been a terrible day," Hanlin said. The sheriff did not say how many people had been slain or wounded at the college in Roseburg, a city of about 20,000 people some 260 miles (418 km) south of Portland. "This is a peaceful community," he said. "We have our share of crime like any community but certainly this is a shock to have this level of a crime." CNN reported that among the wounded was a female who had been shot in the chest. The Oregonian said that at least six patients were critically injured in the shooting, citing an official with Life Flight. Student Brandy Winter, in a posting on Facebook, said she was in a classroom in Snyder Hall, next door to the room where the shooting began and ran, along with her classmates, when they heard the gunfire. "I ran to the edge of the campus, down a hill and waited. From talking with a student in the classroom where it happen, almost every person in the room was shot by a man with four guns," Winter said. "I'm still shaken up ...I can't wrap my mind around this. Please just pray for the families and parents of these students," she said. "They walked us straight through the crime scene with our hands up,” 18-year-old freshman Andi Dinnetz said. "It was more tense outside. In the classroom, everyone was trying to make jokes and keep it from being as serious as it was.” Authorities were combing through the campus, which serves more than 13,000 students, 3,000 of them full-time. Fall term began at the college on Monday. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office said students and faculty members were being bused to the nearby fairgrounds where they could be picked up. President Barack Obama was briefed on the shooting by Lisa Monaco, his homeland security adviser, a White House official said. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on their way to Roseburg. The college said it would be closed until Monday. Recent episodes of gun violence in the United States include the massacre of nine people at a South Carolina church in June and the killing of five U.S. servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 2012, seven students at the small Christian college Oikos University in Oakland, California, were shot dead by a former student, marking the deadliest outburst of violence at U.S. college since April 2007, when a student at Virginia Tech University killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before taking his own life. (Reporting by Shelby Sebens and Courtney Sherwood in Portland, Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Katie Reilly in New York and Alex Dobuzinskis, Piya Sinha-Roy and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)