THEY WERE ‘BEAUTIFUL LITTLE KIDS’
U.S. gun-control debate reignites after shooter kills mother, then 20 children and 6 adults at elementary school.
NEWTOWN, CONN.— As gun shots echoed through an elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, children huddled in the corners and closets where desperate teachers had tried to hide them from the gunman who had invaded their school.
By the time it was over, 28 people, including 20 children, the gunman and his own mother, were dead, and a nation was left struggling to put some kind of context to its latest school massacre.
Hours after the tragedy, U.S. President Barack Obama struggled to maintain his composure as he tried to offer some comfort to those reeling from the events at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., a school whose name now takes its place among institutions forever linked to such violence, including Columbine high school and Virginia Tech.
“Our hearts are broken today,” Obama said, his voice breaking. “The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful little kids between the ages of five and 10 years old.
“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the last few years. … I react not as the president, but as anyone else would — as a parent.”
The perpetrator this time was 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who authorities say killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, a teacher at the school, before driving to the facility in her car with an arsenal that is now believed to have included at least five guns.
Reports in the wake of the shooting said Lanza suffered from some type of personality disorder.
After the bloodshed, Lanza took his own life. One person was injured.
One of the victims was a former Winnipeg girl, the Winnipeg Free Press reported Friday night, identifying her as the six-year-old daughter of former University of Manitoba jazz instructor Jimmy Greene. Her name was Ana.
Diane Licata, the mother of another child at the school, told Postmedia News her son witnessed the gunman shoot his Grade 1 teacher.
“Our son did see him shoot his teacher,” she said Friday night. “He’s traumatized. He’s 6 years old. We’re just going to rally around him and make him whole again.”
Teachers and administrators had been meeting that morning, preparing for the day and planning the Christmas concert. Suddenly three shots rang out.
The principal and viceprincipal and a third staff member rushed into the hall to see what was happening. They were immediately shot. The vice-principal returned with a bleeding foot, and police were alerted.
After the shooting, panicked parents raced to the school, looking for their children. The youngsters, many in their first months of kindergarten and none above Grade 4, were told by police to close their eyes as they were led from the building. School children were escorted through a parking lot in a line, hands on each other’s shoulders.
It was the second-deadliest school shooting in the United States — exceeded only by the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead in 2007.
While paling in numbers, the magnitude of Friday’s rampage was amplified by the tender age of the children murdered, and those who will be haunted by the unfathomable violence they witnessed.
Licata said her son had the wherewithal to run out of the classroom and down the street to safety. She said she received a text message from another parent telling her he was safe.
“It’s indescribable what you feel at the moment. You’re completely numb waiting,” she said, declining to say more.
Stories of the events that unfolded within the school revealed teachers’ frantic efforts to protect the young
“Our son did see him shoot his teacher. He’s traumatized.
PARENT DIANE LICATA
lives in their care.
Teachers locked their doors and ordered children to hide in closets and duck into corners as gunshots echoed through the building.
As the shooting continued, someone switched on the school’s public address system, alerting people in the building to the attack by letting them hear the panic in the school office.
Theodore Varga said he was in a meeting with other Grade 4 teachers when he heard the gunfire, but there was no lock on the door. He said that over the public address system, one could hear people in the office. “You could hear the hysteria that was going on. I think whoever did that saved a lot of people. Everyone in the school was listening to the terror that was transpiring.”
Also, a custodian went running through the hallways, warning people there was a gunman in the school, Varga said. “He said, ‘ Guys! Get down! Hide!’ ” Varga said. “So he was actually a hero.”
The teacher said he did not know if the custodian survived.
Adam Lanza’s older brother, 24-year-old Ryan, of Hoboken, N.J., was being questioned Friday evening, but officials said Ryan Lan- za was not believed to have played a role in the rampage. Ryan told police he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.
Jeannie Pasacreta, a psychologist and nurse practitioner in Newtown, 125 kilometres northeast of New York City, said residents recently gathered for the annual tree-lighting. She described the area as relatively affluent and tightknit.
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy attempted to bring some comfort to the state’s stunned residents. “Evil visited this community today and it’s too early to speak of recovery, but each parent, each sibling, each member of the family has to understand that Connecticut — we’re all in this together. We’ll do whatever we can to overcome this event,” Malloy said.