Sandy Hook 911 calls released
School massacre’s anniversary approaches
DANBURY, CONN. — “Sandy Hook School, I think there is someone shooting in here, Sandy Hook School.”
The female caller’s voice is shaking, the call lasts just 24 seconds and there are few details she can provide. Within moments the Newtown, Conn., Police Department was inundated with calls, all reporting some version of the same nightmare: A shooter was inside the elementary school.
There was a teacher who remained remarkably calm as she described what was unfolding around her.
“It sounds like there are gunshots in the hallway,” she said, adding that she was with her students in a classroom.
“The door isn’t locked,” she said. “I have to go lock the door.”
There was a custodian who stayed on the line with police for nearly the entire duration of the shooting while trying to ensure that it was locked down.
“I keep hearing shooting,” he said. “I keep hearing popping.”
And there was the woman who was shot in the foot, telling 911 where in the school she was as the operator told her help was on the way.
“We have people coming,” the operator told her.
Those are some of the 911 calls placed on the morning of Dec. 14, when Adam Lanza killed 20 firstgraders and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The recordings were scheduled to be released at 2 p.m. Wednesday, but several Connecticut newspapers uploaded the audio earlier.
The release of the recordings comes a little more than a week after the release of the findings of the Connecticut State Police investigation into the massacre.
That report offered a vivid and disturbing portrait of Lanza, 20, who also killed his mother and himself.
It also gave the most detailed account of what happened inside the school that morning, starting with the moment Lanza blasted his way through the plate-glass window to the right of the locked front lobby doors.
The custodian, who identifies himself in the recording as Rick Thorne, gave the 911 operator a realtime account of the shootings, even as he tried to ensure that the building was locked down.
“The front glass is all shot out,” he said.
“It kept going on,” he continued. “It’s still happening.”
As the anniversary of the shooting approaches, the report and the anticipation of the release of the 911 recordings have revived memories of the horror of that day.
Stephen J. Sedensky III, the state’s attorney in Danbury, fought to keep the recordings private after the Associated Press petitioned for their release. Sedensky argued their release would intimidate potential witnesses, impede the investigation
“Sandy Hook School, I think there is someone shooting in here, Sandy Hook School.” 911 CALL
and reveal “information relative to child abuse.”
Judge Eliot D. Prescott of the Superior Court in New Britain listened to the recordings and upheld a ruling by the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, saying there was no legal basis to withhold their content.
Prescott noted that no children were identified by name, and no caller indicated witnessing a child being injured.
Still, the judge acknowledged that the calls were “harrowing and disturbing.”
The first 911 call from the school came in at 9:35.39 a.m. It was the 24-second call made from the school’s administrative office, according to the report.
When the woman is asked why she believes a shooter is in the school, she replies: “Because somebody has got a gun. I saw the glimpse of somebody. They’re running down the hallway. They’re still running. They’re still shooting. Sandy Hook school please.”
Staff members reported seeing a white male wearing a hat and sunglasses and carrying a type of rifle, according to the state report.
“The shooter walked normally, did not say anything and appeared to be breathing normally,” the report said.
Soon after Lanza entered the building, the school’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung, and the school psychologist, Mary Sherlach, left a meeting they were attending in Room 9 to investigate.
Another staff member, who was not named in the report, followed them into the hallway. Hochsprung and Sherlach were shot and killed. The staff member was shot in the leg but managed to crawl back to Room 9, hold the door shut and call 911.
The first police officer arrived at the school less than four minutes after the first 911 call, according to the police investigation. The shooter killed himself one minute later.
The recordings released Wednesday include calls made from both inside and outside the school.
“My friend just texted,” one woman said. “She is at the Sandy Hook Elementary. She just texted me. She said there is a shooting.”
By that time, the authorities knew they were dealing with a major event. The operators can be heard trying to reassure callers while working to get officers to the scene.
“Jen — get the sergeant — all right, get everybody you can going down there,” one operator says to a colleague, who was on the line with the custodian, Thorne.
Asked if he can see anything through the window, Thorne says, “No, it’s still going on! I can’t get over there.”
At one point he thinks the shootings are over. “Now it’s silent,” he says. But then he hears more gunfire.
As the police arrived on the scene he could be heard urgently identifying himself as the custodian.
The calls released are not the only ones made to law enforcement that day. The audio recordings of the state police operators, where many of those calling 911 on cellphones were routed, were not made public.