Jessica Hill/Associated Press
A woman waited to hear about her sister, a teacher, on Friday after a mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: December 14, 2012
A gunman killed 26 people, 20 of them children between the ages of 5 and 10, in a shooting on Friday morning at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., about 65 miles northeast of New York City, the authorities said.
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The Lede: Latest Updates on the School Shooting (December 14, 2012)
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Shannon Hicks/The Newtown Bee
State police led children from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., after a shooting was reported there.
Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
President Obama wiped away a tear during a statement at the White House in which he addressed the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
Michelle Mcloughlin/Reuters
Children waited outside Sandy Hook Elementary School after a shooting on Friday in Newtown, Conn.
The gunman, who was believed to be in his 20s, walked into a classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School where his mother was a teacher. He shot and killed her and then shot 18 students in the classroom. He also shot five other adults, and then killed himself inside the school. Various news outlets identified the shooter as Ryan Lanza. The shooting ranks among the worst in recent United States history.
“The marjority of those who died today were children, beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old,” a visibly distraught President Obama said during a nationally televised address.
After pausing to compose himself for perhaps five long seconds, Mr. Obama said, “They had their entire lives ahead of them: birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.'’
Then the president wiped the corner of his eye.
Some witnesses described a harrowing scene inside the school with the sounds of gunfire followed by sounds of screams.
One 9-year-old student said he was in the gym when the shooting erupted.
“We were in the gym, and I heard really loud bangs,'’ said the boy, as he stood shivering and weeping outside the school with his father’s arms draped around him. “We thought that someone was knocking something over. And we heard yelling, and we heard gunshots. We heard lots of gunshots. We heard someone say, ‘Put your hands up.’ I heard, ‘Don’t shoot.’ We had to go into the closet in the gym. Then someone came and told us to run down the hallway. There were police at every door. There were lots of people crying and screaming.'’
Another student at the school told an NBC affiliate in Connecticut: “I was in the gym and I heard like seven loud booms, and the gym teachers told us to go in the corner and we huddled. We all heard these booming noises, and we started crying. So the gym teachers told us to go into the office where no one could find us. Then a police officer told us to run outside.”
State police said the Newtown police called them shortly after 9:30 a.m., according to Lt. J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police. “On- and off-duty troopers responded to the school, and with Newtown police immediately upon arrival entered the school and began an active shooter search,” Lieutenant Vance said.
Meredith Artley, the managing editor of CNN.com, said that someone who works at the school told her the shooting happened in the hallway. “She described it as a ‘Pop, pop, pop,'” Ms. Artley said. “She said three people went out into the hall and only one person came back, the vice principal, she said, who was shot in the leg or the foot, who came crawling back. She cowered under the table and called 911. She never saw the shooting. There must have been a hundred rounds.”
Mr. Obama was briefed on the shooting at 10:30 a.m., the White House said.
“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in these past few years and each time I learn the news I react not as a president but as anyone else would as a parent and that was especially true today,'’ Mr. Obama said on Friday afternoon. “I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that i do.”
One nearby hospital, Danbury Hospital, said it was treating three patients from the shooting scene. At the hospital, stunned-looking personnel in white coats looked shaken as they gathered in small groups talking about the shooting. In a corner near the gift shop, one woman comforted a weeping colleague.
In the coffee shop, a few customers finished their sandwiches at the lunch counter and the cashier wiped tears from her eyes as she rang up customers.
A nurse at the hospital, Maureen Kerins, lives close to the school and after learning of the shooting from the television
In a mostly empty fifth-floor waiting room, three women watched local coverage of the tragedy, shaking their heads at each new horrifying detail.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy arrived at the scene of the shooting on Friday afternoon.
The school, located among wooded hills and suburban tracts in Fairfield County, 12 miles east of Danbury, serves kindergarten through fourth grade. The school has about 700 students.
“It’s just a little country school,'’ said Robert Place, 65, as he stood near the scene. “The look is very ‘50s or ‘60s. One floor. It’s always had a good reputation. People come to Newtown for the schools.'’
The school’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung, was reportedly one of those shot. But at the home of her daughter Cristina Hassinger, in Oakville, Conn., the family was still awaiting any news of her fate.
“We’re looking for any hope,” said Ryan Hassinger, the son-in-law of the principal. “If she’s in the hospital, any chance is better.”
He said that his wife, Cristina, 28, and “her sister are there now,” with Connecticut state troopers, and that he and other relatives were awaiting word on any news.
“I looked on Twitter and it says that she is passed,” said Mr. Hassinger. But, he added, the family was “just waiting.”
A photograph published by a local newspaper, The Newtown Bee, showed a line of children being escorted out of the school with some of the children crying.
In front of a senior center next door to the school, a 20-year-old woman was with her 4-year-old sister, who was in the school at the time of the shooting. The older woman came to pick up her younger sister along with their mother. The girl had her arms and legs wrapped around her older sister.
When a reporter asked the woman what the little girl knew of what had happened, the woman said, “Absolutely nothing, and we don’t plan to tell her anything.”
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