YouTube video predicted fatal school shooting

By Sami Torma

TUUSULA, Finland (Reuters) - Seven children were killed when a fellow pupil opened fire at a school in southern Finland on Wednesday, hours after a video was posted on YouTube predicting a massacre there.

The school principal also died. The gunman, who had walked through Jokela High School firing into classroom after classroom with a .22-caliber handgun, is in hospital after wounding himself in the head.

"Five boys, two girls and one adult woman were killed," police chief Matti Tohkanen told a news conference.

He later identified the woman as the principal of the school in Tuusula municipality, a town of 35,000 some 60 km (40 miles) from Helsinki.

The YouTube video, set to a hard-driving song called "Stray Bullet," shows a still photo of a low building that appears to be Jokela High School. The photo breaks apart to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a handgun at the camera.

"He (the gunman) was moving systematically through the school hallways, knocking on the doors and shooting through the doors," said Kim Kiuru, who was teaching a grade 8 class when the shooting began.

"It felt unreal, a pupil I have taught myself was running towards me, screaming, a pistol in his hand."

Police said the gun used in the massacre was legal and registered to the gunman on October 19.