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Student kills himself

HUNTERSVILLE (NORTH CAROLINA): A teenager shot and killed himself on Wednesday shortly after pointing a handgun at two other students in a high school parking lot, police said.

Schools in Huntersville were locked down after the 16-yearold, whose name was not released, made threatening gestures in a parking lot at North Mecklenburg High School, police said.

The student, who attended the school, turned the gun on himself when police confronted him at a gas station, said the police. He later died, said a spokeswoman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Police alerted four schools after the student left the high school's campus, said the police. ``We put every school in the area on immediate lockdown in light of everything that's gone on in the world lately,'' they said, referring to the fatal shootings at Virginia Tech. ``We erred on the side of caution.''

The student, who was shot in the head, was taken to hospital. School officials planned to have counsellors available to North Mecklenburg students on Thursday. The school also will have a larger security presence, she said. Families in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district were to receive automated phone messages about the situation, the officials said. _ AP

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