Huntersville, April 19 (AP): A teenager shot himself shortly after pointing a handgun at two other students in a high school parking lot, police has said.

Schools in Huntersville were locked down after the 16-year-old, 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 Captain Michael Kee of the Huntersville Police Department. He later died, said Tahira Stalbert, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Police alerted four schools after the student left the high school's campus, Kee said.

"We put every school in the area on immediate lockdown in light of everything that's gone on in the world lately," Kee said, referring to the fatal shootings of 33 people at Virginia Tech.

"We erred on the side of caution."

The student, who was shot in the head, was taken to Carolinas Medical Centre, Kee said.

School officials planned to have counsellors available to North Mecklenburg students today, Stalbert said.

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, Stalbert said.