CHICAGO — A student armed with a handgun held 23 other students and a teacher captive for several hours on Monday at a high school in Marinette, Wis., and then shot himself, the authorities said.
All of the captives were released unharmed after about five hours.
The standoff began after 3 p.m., before school let out, when a male student entered a classroom at Marinette High School carrying a handgun, the Marinette police said. He kept the class and the teacher in the room as the rest of the school emptied and evening set in.
By late Monday, scores of law enforcement officials and other state authorities from all over eastern Wisconsin had gathered near the school, which was cordoned off, and police negotiators spoke by telephone to the teacher.
The student first released five captives around 9 p.m. The rest were released a short time later.
Chief Jeff Skorik of the Marinette police said the armed student had no demands during the standoff and provided no sense of why he had taken people captive. Investigators met with his parents, whom they did not name publicly, as the standoff continued, the police said.
Skorik says the student was taken to an area hospital after he shot himself, and his condition wasn’t known Monday night.
The police chief says police officers entered the classroom after hearing three gunshots. No other students or the teacher were wounded.
Families of the students trapped at the school gathered in a room usually reserved for jurors at the local courthouse in Marinette, a city of 11,700 about 50 miles north of Green Bay.
Information for this article was contributed by Todd Richmond of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 11/30/2010