This is a terrible act that we should take time and pray for those victims and their families in this terrible massacre in Connecticut. I ask that there are not gun control comments on this article as now is the time to just give a moment of silence.
A teacher’s son clad in black and carrying two guns rampaged through a Connecticut elementary school Friday, killing 20 small children and six adults, including his mother, in the nation’s second-worst school shooting, law enforcement officials said.
The gunman, identified as Ryan Lanza, 24, of Hoboken, N.J., was also found dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, a federal law enforcement official said. Lanza’s mother is a kindergarten teacher at the hilltop school, and it’s inside her classroom where most of the casualties were found, according to NBCNewYork.com.
Another relative, who was not identified, was found shot to death at a home in Newtown, officials said.
Lanza’s younger brother was being questioned to see if he knew anything about the mass killing, NBC News reported.
Some young survivors — all under age 10 — described the terror of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and a massive police response that included SWAT officers going room to room to search for victims as they huddled in classroom corners.
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 told the Associated Press. “He was very brave.”
One student told NBC Connecticut she was in the gym when she heard “seven loud booms.”
“The gym teachers told us to go in the corner, so we all huddled,” she said. “And I kept hearing these booming noises. And we all … started crying.
“All the gym teachers told us to go into the office where no one could find us,” she added. “So then a police officer came in and told us to run outside. So we did and we came in the firehouse.”
Authorities in the small bedroom community 60 miles from New York City were alerted to the unfolding carnage by a 911 call around 9:30 a.m. and then reached out to state police and neighboring police departments for help.
Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said troopers who responded fanned out across the school and searched “every door, every crack, every crevice” of the building.
He said only that they found “several fatalities,” including the shooter, at the scene.
The 600-student school goes up to the fourth grade. After the search was over, children and staff were escorted to a staging area outside.
Children said they were told to close their eyes as they were led outside, apparently to avoid seeing anything gruesome.
From NBC News
