America's worst school shooting: Gunman kills 20 children and six adults in Connecticut primary school shooting, say police

America is coming to terms with its worst ever school massacre after 26 people, including 20 young children, were killed by a gunman who opened fire at a Connecticut elementary school. The gunman was later found dead at the scene.


In all, 28 people, including the gunman and another individual who was only identified as living with the killer and found at a different site, were killed.

Earlier, frightened pupils were rushed out of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, some 65 miles of northeast from New York City, as police and other law enforcement officials responded to an early morning emergency call. 18 children were pronounced dead at the school, while 2 died after being moved to a local hospital. 7 adults, including the gunman, were killed and one person was injured at the school, while one person was killed at another site in Newtown, according to Lt. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police.

Hours later, as a shaken nation looked on at the events unfolding in the quiet southern New England town with horror, flags flying from the US Capitol building and the White House in Washington DC were lowered to half mast. A visibly distressed President Obama, pausing repeatedly to compose himself as he addressed the nation and at one point raising a finger to wipe a tear from the corner of his left eye, spoke of the tragic waste of young lives, with most of those dead “beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old.”

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. And each time I learn the news, I react not as a president, but as anybody else would as a parent. And that was especially true today,” he said.

Referring to the young victims, he added: “They had their entire lives ahead of them - birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own... So our hearts are broken today for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children, and for the families of the adults who were lost.”

The identity of the killer was unclear. The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed law enforcement official, named the perpetrator as Adam Lanza, although this was not confirmed at a mid-afternoon briefing attended by the Connecticut governor Dan Malloy. Adam Lanza’s older brother, Ryan, said to be from Hoboken, New Jersey, was being questioned after earlier being mistakenly identified as the killer by a law enforcement officials, according to the wire service.

The Lanza bothers’ mother was reported to be a kindergarten teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary. According to the official briefing, the shooting took place in one section of the school, encompassing two rooms. The local Hartford Courant newspaper, meanwhile, reported that Lanza had himself attended Sandy Hook, though again this was not verified by authorities.

The killer is said to have killed the principal before proceeding to his mother’s kindergarten class. Although his mother was reported to be dead, it was unclear whether her body had been found at the school or at the other Newtown site under investigation tonight.

Authorities were also initially silent about how the killer, who was reported to be carrying at least two and possibly as many four weapons, died.

Some 700 pupils regularly attend the kindergarten-to-fourth-grade school located near a quiet stretch of suburban woodland in Newtown.

If residents here were bewildered to find themselves in the shadow of unfathomable evil then the picture presented by their bucolic town goes some way to explain why. Unusually wide, Main Street tracks generously between mostly proud homes some guarded by Connecticut dry stone walls, all with wreaths on their doors for the season. A square church tower rises on one side, the white clapboard and clipped evergreens of the Inn at Newtown are on the other. This is the New England that Norman Rockwell captured in his drawings – a supposedly insulated from the hurly burly of the world beyond.

No longer. This morning, the wreaths will be minus their cheery red ribbons and mistletoe flourishes as they become symbols instead of mourning, silent tributes to the 20 children who are now gone and the six adults whose only concern when they arrived for work yesterday morning was to care for them as they did every day.

No one here knew even how to articulate their feelings of horror as the sun began to set behind the modest, tree-covered hills of western Connecticut.

With the death tool rising through the day, shocked pupils described the scene as the killer, said to be dressed all in black, arrived on what was a sunny Friday morning. “I was in the gym and I heard a loud, like seven loud booms, and the gym teachers told us to go in the corner, so we all huddled,” one student told NBC Connecticut during its live broadcast. "And I kept hearing these booming noises. And we all … started crying.”

She added: “All the gym teachers told us to go into the office where no one could find us. So then a police officer came in and told us to run outside. So we did and we came in the firehouse and waited for our parents.”

The shooting is the latest such incident to hit America, with the number dead reported to be more than double those killed at Columbine high school in Colorado, where 13 people were killed in the infamous massacre in 1999. More recently, shootings have occurred in Colorado, which was hit by an attack at a midnight showing of the new Batman film, and a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. At Virginia Tech, a university, 32 people were left dead following a massacre by a student in 2007.

On each occasion, there have ritual rumblings about the need for greater gun control, but little meaningful action. Referring to the litany of tragedies, the President yesterday called for another effort in that direction. “As a country, we have been through this too many times... We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics,” he said.

The words will no doubt resonate with many in Newtown. For some, including parents who had been reunited with children who had survived, there were a few hours earlier yesterday when they thought they could feel relief. This might have been much worse. It was some hours before the true scale of the tragedy became clear.

At dusk many of the parents of the dead children were receiving care and grief counseling at the Newtown fire station. Lt. Vance meanwhile appealed to journalists to keep a respectful distance. “It is very, very difficult scene” in there, he said bluntly. “It is a very tragic scene”.