A troubled 20-year-old loner with a history of autistic behaviour is the monster behind a horrific shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that left 26 people, including 20 children, dead on on Friday.
Adam Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, a kindergarten teacher, at the upscale suburban home they shared together and then took three of her guns and drove the Dandy Hook Elementary School about 9.30am.
He used two semi-automatic pistols, a Glock and Sig Sauer, and reportedly wiped out an entire classroom of young children and shot several in a second class before taking his own life.
Witnesses said they saw Lanza going from room-to-room shooting people after first killing the principal, Dawn Hochsprung, and psychologist in an execution-style after they confronted him in the hallway.
Parents who have not been united with their children are assuming the worst. One witness told WCBS: “Police just told us everyone presumed missing is in the school and they are dead.”
Students described being ushered from their classrooms hand-in-hand, with their eyes closed, to the safety of a nearby fire station as police converged on the school.
Adam’s brother, Ryan, 24, who was originally thought to have been the shooter, is being questioned by police after he was arrested at his home in Hoboken, New Jersey.
He was on a bus on his way home from work when he was being named as the gunman and posted on Facebook that it wasn’t him.
He told a friend he believed his mentally disabled brother did it. Adam is believed to be autistic.
Another relative told ABC Adam had been “obviously not well” and Beth Israel tweeted that her daughter went to school with him and he was “troubled for a long time”.
Alex Israel spoke to CNN about how she went to school with Adam and she described him as fidgety, and a quiet loner who kept to himself.
She also said he was a highly intelligent student, “above the rest of us”.
But she said he was never violent.
She tweeted earlier in the day that he was “crazy”.
The gunman’s father, Peter Lanza, who is divorced from his wife, lives in Stamford, Connecticut, and declined to comment after police performed a welfare check on him.
Neighbours said he recently remarried.
Mr. Lanza learned of the tragic and senseless massacre by reporters who had flocked to his home.
He arrived shortly after police left and asked what the problem was.
The Stamford Connecticut said his expression shifted from patient to surprise to horror.
Newtown was once named one of the safest places to live in America and before the shooting incident on Friday, there had been one murder in a decade.
The President, Barack Obama, addressed a stunned nation five hours after the shooting and openly wept as he spoke of the mindless shooting saying: “Our hearts are broken today.”
Seldom has a head of state expressed greater public emotion in modern times.
Obama struggled for words, pausing several times as he wiped away tears saying: “This evening, Michelle and I will…hug our children a little tighter, and we’ll tell them that we love them.”
Lanza is believed to have shot himself at the scene, according to the New York Times.
He was carrying three weapons, including two handguns and a rifle, and was wearing a bullet-proof vest, a mask and black military gear.
Three guns were found at the scene – a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols – and a .223-caliber rifle.
The rifle was recovered from the back of a car at the school. The two pistols were recovered from inside the school. They were legally registered to Nancy Lanza.
A number of children were found hiding in closets in the school five hours after the shooting.
One mother told CBS that her child said there were bullets “whizzing by” him in the hallway and that a teacher pulled him into a classroom. It was said to have been like a “war zone”.
Speaking inside the St Rose of Lima church in Newtown tonight, Governor of Connecticut, Dan Malloy, said: “In the coming days and in the coming weeks, I will pray that you all embrace one another, that you lift one another up, that you understand the difficulties that you collectively will undergo.
“Keep in your prayers the children who lost their lives today, keep in your prayers the adults who lost their lives today.”
Mayor Bloomberg said that immediate action must be taken over gun laws in the US.
He said: “We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again.
“For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown.
“But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action.”
The shooting is the latest in a series of high-profile gun crimes in American schools and colleges, that is especially shocking given the age of the students involved.
At Ryan Lanza’s home in Hoboken, New Jersey, on Friday, around 20 armed state police could be seen coming out of the house having apparently searched it at around 3pm.
Ryan was then led out in cuffs. He had earlier taken to Facebook to dispel rumors that he was the shooter and told a friend he believed it was his mentally disabled brother.
A parent told MailOnline Lanza battered on a closet where 15 children and their music teacher were locked inside shouting: “Let me in! Let me in!”
The mother, in her 40s, who declined to give her name, praised the quick-thinking actions of Maryrose Kristopik: “I want to thank my child’s music teacher. She saved their lives.
“The shooter kept banging on the door screaming: ‘Let me in! Let me in!’ but he didn’t get in.
“Now I have to explain to my nine-year-old son that his friends won’t be coming back. How am I supposed to do that?”
Alberta Bajraliu, 41, got a call from a friend who heard a gunshot at the school and told her to check it out.
Mrs. Alberta’s nine-year-old daughter, Venesa, was at the school but her two other children are not.
She said: “I was one of the first there and they were bringing children out, carrying them out. One girl came out and her face was covered in blood and she had bits of meat from other people in her hair. It was terrible.
“Another girl just looked shocked. They brought one girl out and I thought it was my daughter. They asked me: ‘Does she have black trousers?’ and I said no as Venesa had jeans.
“When I saw her I just felt so relieved. She has not spoken much about what happened. She said she was in an art class and the teacher closed the door and they were waiting until they could get out.”
Miss Bajraliu also paid tribute to the school’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung, who is believed to have been killed. She said: “She would have done anything for her children”.
Josh Milas, 21, a former pupil at the school, also paid tribute to her and said: “She loved those kids. She was a great person.”
Dawn Hochsprung, 47, has been the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary school since July 2010.
One teacher is confirmed to have been shot in the foot and is being treated at a local hospital.
The mayor said they are not releasing names until next-of-kin have been notified.
Two handguns have been recovered at the scene and police have cordoned off a black Honda with New Jersey plates believed to belong to the dead shooter.
Hundreds of officers and police dogs had the area surrounded as they worked to secure the scene.
Teachers and students were said to be in morning meetings when the shots were fired. The children were locked inside their classrooms until police came and evacuated them to a nearby fire station.
One child was seen being carried from the school by a police officer, apparently seriously wounded.
A person in one room had “numerous gunshot wounds”, police told the The Hartford Courant.
Traumatized students were seen being led out of the school crying and holding hands shortly after the shots rang out.
There were also reports that a bomb squad was being called into the school. A helicopter was flying over the scene.
Frantic parents were rushing to the school as they were advised to go to the nearby fire station with ID to pick up their children.
A witness told News8 he saw one child with a bloodied face and another with a hand injury.
The school has about 600 students from kindergarten through to fourth grade – aged between five and 11.
President Obama was first notified of the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school at 10:30am, White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, said.
First Selectman, Pat Llodra, told Patch that there is no information being released about the victims — only confirming that there was a shooting.
“I’m horrified, saddened and shocked that this happened in Newtown,” Llodra said. “Our priorities right now are making sure everyone safe and reuniting parents with their children.”
One mother of an eight-year-old girl at the school, Brenda Lebinski, told Patch that her daughter is safe thanks to one teacher’s decision to move all kids into a closet when a gunman had entered the building.
Mrs. Lebinski said that she had spoken to her daughter’s teacher who was in the school at the time of the shooting, and that a masked gunman had shot adults in the school.
“My daughter’s teacher is my hero,” Lebinski said. “She locked all the kids in a closet and that saved their lives.”
Daily Mail.
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