Official: 27 dead in Connecticut school shooting

12.14.12 — NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A gun­man opened fire inside a Con­necti­cut ele­men­tary school Fri­day, killing 26 peo­ple, includ­ing 18 chil­dren, and forc­ing stu­dents to cower in class­rooms and then flee with the help of teach­ers and police.

The death toll was given to The Asso­ci­ated Press by an offi­cial who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because the inves­ti­ga­tion was still under way.

The shoot­ing appeared to be the nation’s second-deadliest school shoot­ing, exceeded only by the Vir­ginia Tech mas­sacre in 2007.

Par­ents flooded 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.

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.

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.

Another offi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity because the inves­ti­ga­tion was still under way, said the gun­man appar­ently had two guns.

A law enforce­ment offi­cial in Wash­ing­ton said the attacker was a 20-year-old man with ties to the school and that one of the guns was a .223-caliber rifle. The offi­cial also said that police were search­ing a loca­tion in New Jer­sey in con­nec­tion with the shoot­ings. That offi­cial spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymity because the source was not autho­rized to speak on the record about the devel­op­ing crim­i­nal investigation.

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 say a word.

Stephen Del­giadice said his 8-year-old daugh­ter heard two big bangs and teach­ers told her to get in a cor­ner. His daugh­ter was fine.

“It’s alarm­ing, espe­cially in New­town, Con­necti­cut, which we always thought was the safest place in Amer­ica,” he said.

A dis­patcher at the New­town Vol­un­teer Ambu­lance Corps said a teacher had been shot in the foot and taken to Dan­bury Hos­pi­tal. 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 raced 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.”

Melissa Makris, 43, said her 10-year-old son, Philip, was in the school gym.

“He said he heard a lot of loud noises and then scream­ing. Then the gym teach­ers imme­di­ately gath­ered the chil­dren in a cor­ner and kept them safe in a cor­ner,” Makris said.

The fourth-grader told his mother that the stu­dents stayed hud­dled until police came in the gym. He also told her that he saw what looked like a body under a blan­ket as he fled the school.

“He said the police­man came in and helped them get out of the build­ing and told them to run,” Makris said. “And they ran to the firehouse.”

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.”

Posted by Randa Wagner on Dec 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.