At least a dozen students were taken hostage on Wednesday by a man believed to carry a gun in a college classroom in western Tennessee, police said.

No injuries or gunshots were reported, and several students were released by the gunman hours later in the standoff with police at Dyersburg State Community College.

The gunman was identified as 26-year-old Harold Kilpatrick from Memphis, about 120 kilometers southwest of the college.

He was visiting his sister in Dyersburg, and was believed to have a gun and a knife.

Kilpatrick had made no demands except a request for drinking water, police said. He was not a student at the college.

Officers were communicating to him through student hostages on their cell phones.
In a suicide note left at his sister's house, Kilpatrick said he did not like Americans and that he was a member of the al Qaeda terror organization.

Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were called to the college, but Justice Department officials said they had no evidence the gunman was a member of the terrorist organization.

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