WINNENDEN, Germany — A 17-year-old gunman dressed in black opened fire at his former high school in southwestern Germany today, killing at least 15 people before police shot him to death, state officials said.

Nine students and three teachers were among the dead, State Interior Minister Heribert Rech said.

Triggering a land and air manhunt, he hijacked a car, let the passengers go and drove about 25 miles before police found him.

When confronted, he killed two bystanders in a shootout with police before he was slain, Baden Wuerttemburg governor Guenther Oettinger said. Two officers were seriously injured, but there was no immediate information on other casualties.

Police have not yet identified the gunman.

It was Germany's worst shooting since another teenage gunman killed 16 people and himself in another high school in 2002.

Police said the former student at the school in Winnenden, about 12 miles northeast of Stuttgart, entered it at 9:30 a.m. and opened fire, shooting at random.

Witnesses said students jumped from the windows of the building after the gunman opened fire.

"He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath," regional police chief Erwin Hetger said earlier. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."

In 2002, 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer before turning his gun on himself in the Gutenberg high school in Erfurt.