Suicide
Inside the John O'Gaunt Community Technology College (closed and empty at that time of year for summer holidays), where he had previously been a pupil, Michael Ryan barricaded himself in a classroom. Police surrounded the building and found that a number of ground-staff and two children had seen Ryan enter, and they offered guidance on how to enter, and hiding places. Negotiators made contact with Ryan only after the shooter had taken potshots at circling helicopters. At one point Ryan waved what appeared to be an unpinned grenade at them through the window, though reports differ as to whether Ryan really was armed as such. Police attempted negotiations to coax Ryan out of the school, but these attempts failed. Ryan refused to leave before knowing what happened to his mother, expressing that her death was "a mistake". At 18:52, Ryan committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with the Beretta pistol. One of the statements Ryan made towards the end of the negotiations was widely reported: "Hungerford must be a bit of a mess. I wish I had stayed in bed."
Read more about this topic: Hungerford Massacre
Famous quotes containing the word suicide:
“Most of the folktales dealing with the Indians are lurid and romantic. The story of the Indian lovers who were refused permission to wed and committed suicide is common to many places. Local residents point out cliffs where Indian maidens leaped to their death until it would seem that the first duty of all Indian girls was to jump off cliffs.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Allow me to say that I would long since have committed suicide had desisting made me a professor of Latin.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)