NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A gunman opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school where his mother worked Friday, killing at least 26 people, including 18 children, by blasting his way through the building as young students cowered helplessly in classrooms while their teachers and classmates were shot.
The attack, coming less than two weeks before Christmas, appeared to be the nation's second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.
The death toll — 26 victims plus the gunman — was given to The Associated Press by an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way.
Panicked parents raced to Sandy Hook Elementary School, about 60 miles northeast of New York City, looking for their children in the wake of the shooting. Students were told to close their eyes by police as they were led from the building.
Robert Licata said his 6-year-old son was in class when the gunman burst in and shot the teacher.
"That's when my son grabbed a bunch of his friends and ran out the door," he said. "He was very brave. He waited for his friends."
He said the shooter didn't utter a word.
A photo taken by The Newtown Bee newspaper showed a group of young students — some crying, others looking visibly frightened — being escorted by adults through a parking lot in a line, hands on each other's shoulders.
The suspect was 24-year-old Ryan Lanza, whose mother, Nancy, works at the school, a law enforcement official said. His younger brother was being held for questioning as a possible second shooter, the official said.
Ryan Lanza's girlfriend and another friend were missing in New Jersey, the official also said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the developing criminal investigation.
Students and staff were among the victims, state police Lt. Paul Vance said a brief news conference. He also said the gunman was dead inside the school, but he refused to say how people were killed.
Stephen Delgiadice said his 8-year-old daughter was in the school and heard two big bangs. Teachers told her to get in a corner, he said.
"It's alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America," he said. His daughter was fine.
Andrea Rynn, a spokeswoman at the hospital, said it had three patients from the school but she did not have information on the extent or nature of their injuries.
Mergim Bajraliu, 17, heard the gunshots echo from his home and ran to check on his 9-year-old sister at the school. He said his sister, who was fine, heard a scream come over the intercom at one point. He said teachers were shaking and crying as they came out of the building.
"Everyone was just traumatized," he said.
Richard Wilford's 7-year-old son, Richie, is in the second grade at the school. His son told him that he heard a noise that "sounded like what he described as cans falling."
The boy told him a teacher went out to check on the noise, came back in, locked the door and had the kids huddle up in the corner until police arrived.
"There's no words," Wilford said. "It's sheer terror, a sense of imminent danger, to get to your child and be there to protect him."
The White House said Barack Obama was notified of the shooting and his spokesman Jay Carney said the president had "enormous sympathy for families that are affected."
___
Associated Press writers Jim Fitzgerald in Newtown, Pete Yost in Washington, D.C., and Michael Melia in Hartford contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
Comments (76)
Add commentShooting
Why can't these goofy piles ever just eat the bullet themselves? My heart goes out to the families.
dvranish,
expect a call from the Secret Service for that comment. they'll say you advocated shooting the Real Criminals in the USA.
The story per Fox News today.
They were airing some obtuse interview during the nationwide coverage of this event this morning.
Then the brilliant (sarcasm) Huckabee pronounced the following.
"Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) weighed in on the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. on Friday, saying the crime was no surprise because we have "systematically removed God" from public schools.
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools," Huckabee said on Fox News. "Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?"
Southie
No one said anything about FOX news. Your hatred for all things conservative is showing through.
Still...have a very merry Christmas.
sad, sad, sad
This is so sad and beyond belief. It is a non-partison issue.
Mr. Huckebee should be able to have an opinion as Southie
can have an opinion. People say things that just come to mind at the time. I would put the break down of the family
but, there are many reasons. Just plain evil is one.
I do not deny that, trip.
Lets hope it is non-partisan, Sadie, but I have to see it to believe it.
2012 party Platforms regarding gun control.
"And on guns, the Democratic platform states that “the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ Second Amendment right to own and use firearms.” But it says the right can be subject to “reasonable regulation,” and calls for reinstating the assault weapons ban.
The Republican platform says, “We oppose legislation that is intended to restrict our Second Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or magazines or otherwise restoring the ill-considered Clinton gun ban.”
Southie
About the Hucksters remark on Fox, he was asked the question,"how could God let this happen"? That may be why he answered that way.
Your quote is exactly like on Media Matters where I listened to the tape of the question. I believe he did answer like that. I like to hear the question asked to put the answer in context.
Some people with mental health problems should not be out and about . There usually are signs, red flags that are missed or people think they will get into trouble if they report them.
I don't blame guns, but do wonder why his mom had so many and that he had access to them. I think CT has some strict gun laws already. It takes one sick puppy to do something like shooting up at a mall and a school . Little kids, gone.
"But it says the right can be
"But it says the right can be subject to 'reasonable regulation,'”
That's called legalese. When words mean nothing, they can mean anything. People who take them at face value are often called "dupes."
BTW, southie. I just received a call from a neighbor (true story). His house in Brainerd was broken into last weekend and he lost all his guns, a flat-screen TV and various other items (personally, I would have gone for the toaster). But I was wondering. Would you recommend I use my 12 guage (all I have is bird-shot) or my .357 revolver?
NRA members want stricter gun laws and controls.
Let's hear from them.
Huckabee doesn't impress me. He is a lobbyist and collects money from people to support himself.
Where are the voices of conservatives speaking for solutions to the problem of mass murders in America?
Trip...use your phone and dial 911. I would hate for anything to happen to you over a toaster. Who would debate me?
Lets start here: ban assault weapons except for active duty police and military members.
Sure...
Call 911, just like the teachers in Connecticut did.
BTW, a .223 is not an assault weapon. What's next in your time-line, ban all rifles?
Internet Enabled...Voices...
The World is Integrated...
Not perfectly, but doing pretty well...
Yes, there is tragedy, but there is also community...
Community supports those in the tragedy...
Revenge is never an answer...
Many hearts broken by this experience...
It's always a curse to understand the lost and why they act out...
A puzzle the Almighty may help us ALL undersand...
The guns didn't kill
The guns didn't kill, the sick person behind the trigger did. The guns used are not your go to the woods to get a deer guns. I think that people who have good values, and have common sense,and a locked gun safe, should be able to have guns. NOT ASSAULT WEAPONS!!!!
Reports say the 223 is a semi-automatic assault rifle.
"Details of the weapons used in Connecticut are still emerging, but CBS News has reported that there were two guns found with the shooter: A Glock and a Sig Sauer nine millimeter. Both are handguns, but both have the capability to be used with the high-capacity clips that McCarthy sought to ban. In the shooters' car was a .223 caliber semi-automatic assault rifle. It is not yet clear if that weapon was used in the massacre."
It was not used. Maybe it is a matter of semantics for gun owners to debate.
But none of the weapons were designed to kill children in their classrooms.
tripwire3
"BTW, a .223 is not an assault weapon."
http://thegunhouse.com/gun_filter/41/Tactical_Rifles_.223_5.56_Nato
Surveys show NRA members want stricter
laws for regulating ownership of guns. And they want the current regulations enforced.
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2012/07/24/poll-shows-even-nra-members-su...
southie
" but both have the capability to be used with the high-capacity clips that McCarthy sought to ban"
Capacity?????? YOU could kill someone with the capacity to drive your car as stupid as you post on here. Should you be banned?
Crud,
does this make my single shot T/C Contender 223 pistol an assult weapon too? I think Lil'Cappy needs to leave his pistol home for the next flight! Sheeesh!!
Fair n Balanced
I take it you don't care for the president, but this is not his or anyones fault (execpt the shooters) the hand guns used were owned by the shooters mother, and I am willing to say they were not in a locked gun safe. No matter if we have stricter gun law or not he was not the owner of said guns so he shouldn't have had them. To own a gun is a privilege and a responsibility. Also when was the last time you shot a deer with a hand gun?
A few years ago.
I've shot two deer with handguns, one at 85 yards and one at 180 yards (witnessed). What's that got to do with any of this?
The Second Amendment wasn't put in there to protect hunting. It was put in the Constitution to protect citizens from tyrants and an overbearing government. The current President chooses which laws he wants to enforce and sues or investigates individual state law enforcement people for enforcing their state laws. His justice department allows drug dealers to buy guns illegally. Mr. Obama fits the "Tyrant" label well. He and his minions will milk this tragedy to the maximum to further their chokehold on the American people.
Dupes like you only bolster their criminal grip on this nation.
What new law would have helped here?
If the shooter stole his mother's guns, that is already against the law. Shooting his mother is against the law. Shooting those children is against the law. Since he apparently didn't use an assault weapon to kill the children, an assault weapons ban wouldn't have done anything here. The only possible law that might have changed things here would have been a total confiscation of all legally owned guns of everyone in the country. If this is what you liberals want-- stand up and say it. Trying to SOUND so concerned and SHOW everyone how you are going to save the world with new laws that would do NOTHING makes me sick. Use your energy to try to find a way to stop the PEOPLE who do this sort of crime, and stop grandstanding about more useless laws that would do nothing.
Hunt1
Right on the mark, thank you. Fair n Balanced no matter what happens you always find a way of making it political. This is an act of a sick person not a political rally! P.S. FnB great for you on the deer kills with the hand gun, wish the jack of today would have taken the gun to the woods not school !!!
YOU made it political
by insinuating that we are only allowed hunting firearms under the 2nd Amendment. Don't try to deny that.
One of my 223s is a single shot pistol.
The jack of today
saved us millions by executing himself. I wish he had done it yesterday.
So now you agree with me!
So now you agree with me!
On that "Jack"
I don't discriminate when it comes to dirtbags.
Hunt1
Gold star for today. FnB, 180 yards with a pistol? That's worth another gold star.
I have a scope
on that S&W and I missed the first shot. Thanks though, trip.
This is a tough one to
This is a tough one to comment on.
But in all fairness to the anti-gun people. THIS also happened today in China: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html
That's right, a crazy loon did this one as well. And look what their government decided to do to remedy the situation
"A number of measures were introduced at the time, including increased security at schools across the country and a regulation requiring people to register with their national ID cards when buying large knives."
Blame the object, NOT the person. or the psychotropic drug.
All of these massacres INCLUDING the one in CT. Happened while those people were taking prescription psychotropic drugs. Yet no one wants to talk about that. Not on the MSM or anywhere.
I was watching the news today and they cut to a commercial for Chantix. Then while the commercial was talking about possible side effects. The first one was "Thoughts of suicide" or "Harming yourself or others" I'm like WAKE UP people!
Guns are a dangerous tool
Guns are a dangerous tool when in the wrong hands.
Knives are a dangerous tool when in the wrong hands.
Cars are a dangerous tool when in the wrong hands.
Drugs are a dangerous tool when in the wrong hands.
Poison is a dangerous tool when in the wrong hands.
Marshall Arts is a dangerous tool when in the wrong hands.
Power is a dangerous tool when in the wrong hands.
So where do you stop.?
Before the over-medication of children and young adults prior to the 80's you did not see this type of behavior, but then all the teenagers and young adults were not taking psychotropic drugs.
And just for clarification.
And just for clarification. An ASSAULT rifle is one that a military has. Not the populace. An ASSAULT rifle is capable of firing fully automatic. Semi-Auto rifles are not Assault weapons.