That happened in a nearby community, at a schoolhouse that I often passed while working nearby. I'd like to include this story if I may. It speaks to the Amish faith and a truer type of Christianity than what we are used to seeing today.
'The happening': 10 years after the Amish shooting 
Public accounts usually summarize how Charles Roberts, 32, a non-Amish local resident, entered the school house on a Monday morning, and how after the teacher fled to find help, he ordered all the boys to leave and then shot the girls. But Esh’s father, Aaron Esh Sr, said survivors had told how, as Roberts brandished a pistol, he ordered all the children to lie down at the front of the class, below the blackboard. Not just the girls.
A group of women talk to officials at a police line at the intersection of Mine Road and White Oak Road, on 4 October 2006. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP
When Roberts began tying the girls up and pulled down the window shades, Esh Sr said, children began weeping with fear.
“The boys were terrified, too,” he said, rubbing his ample beard.
Just before he barricaded himself and the girls inside, Roberts let the boys go. Aaron Jr went outside, then panicked because his little brother Joel was still inside. Joel, then seven, was the last boy out. Seven minutes after the teacher raised the alarm, state troopers arrived.
It is believed Roberts planned to sexually molest the girls during a lengthy siege. He told them, survivors said, that he was angry at God because his baby daughter had died despite his prayers. He also said he had molested two young female relatives when a teen, a claim that was never proven. When the
troopers came, he
fired at each of the 10 girls, then shot himself dead.
The community convulsed in shock and grief. The boys had a lucky escape, so everyone said. But they were traumatized.
www.syracuse.com
