Look like family problem cause man to kill in elementary school in USA

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This aerial photo shows Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where authorities say a gunman opened fire inside the school in a shooting that left 27 people dead, including 20 young children, Friday, Dec. 14, 2012.

This aerial photo shows a triage area set up at the Sandy Hook fire station in Newtown, Conn., near where authorities say a gunman opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in a shooting that left 27 people dead, including 18 children, Friday, Dec. 14, 2012.

 

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NEWTOWN, Conn. -- A lone gunman shot and killed his mother, then drove to the school where she reportedly taught and went on a shooting rampage Friday morning, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before turning a gun on himself.

The shooter was identified as Adam Lanza, 20, who was found dead inside Sandy Hook Elementary School of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The incident -- among the worst school shootings in U.S. history -- is the latest in a series of mass shootings in the U.S. this year, including Tuesday's assault by a lone gunman at a Portland, Ore., shopping mall that left two dead and one wounded.

Three weapons were found — a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, inside the school, and a .223-caliber rifle in the back of a car.

A federal law enforcement official said the guns had been legally bought and registered by the shooter's 52-year-old mother, Nancy Lanza, USA TODAY's Kevin Johnson reported.

The AP described her as a teacher at the school, although USA TODAY could not independently confirm the report.

Ryan Lanza, the suspect's 24-year-old brother, was questioned by law enforcement in Hoboken, N.J., and said Adam was believed to suffer from a personality disorder. He told police that he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.

Restaurant owner Mark Tambascio, a family friend, said Nancy Lanza told him recently that her son Adam had Asperger syndrome, that he was "getting out of control and that she might need special help for him."

Tambascio told USA TODAY's Gary Stoller that Nancy was a good-hearted person who was "always doing something for some cause."


A prayer vigil was held Friday night at the Newtown United Methodist Church in memory of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.(Photo: Robert Deutsch USAT)
He also noted that she liked to target shoot, which could explain the guns registered in her name that were in Adam's possession.

A federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity told USA TODAY that Adam Lanza killed his mother early Friday, then drove to the school in her car with the three guns, walked into the building around 9:40 a.m. ET, shortly after classes began, and opened fire. The report was also carried by the Associated Press.

Police said the shootings took place in two rooms in one section of the school building, including a kindergarten classroom.

Theodore Varga said he was in a meeting with other fourth-grade teachers when he heard the gunfire, but there was no lock on the door.

He said someone turned on the public address system so that "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."

As the shooting erupted, quick-thinking teachers and faculty members hid some students in closets and bathrooms, while others rounded up students and spirited them out of the building.

Children lucky enough to escape the carnage fled in frightened groups -- some crying, some holding hands -- as they were escorted from the single-story school by teachers. Witnesses reported up to 100 shots were fired.

State Police Lt. Paul Vance said the murder scene was so gruesome that first responders, including tactical squad police, were provided counseling later in the day. "This was a tragic, horrific scene they encountered,'' he said.

Vance told reporters Friday night that the medical examiner and other officers were working through the night to identify the dead and to try to determined how the grim events unfolded. He said he hoped to release the names of the victims -- and the gunman -- on Saturday.

Vance said 18 of the children and six adults died at the school. Two other children were pronounced dead after they were taken to local hospitals. One wounded victim was hospitalized.

FULL COVERAGE: Connecticut school shooting

MORE: Young witnesses will need trauma, grief counseling

OBAMA REACTS: 'Our hearts are broken today'

In Washington, a visibly shaken President Obama, wiping away tears, said he was "heartbroken."

"These were "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old,'' Obama said. "They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays. Graduations. Weddings. Kids of their own."


Sandy Hook is in a residential, wooded neighborhood about 60 miles northeast of New York City. The school, which serves kindergartners to fourth-graders, has 39 teachers and nearly 700 students. A reverse 911 call went out to parents warning of an incident, shaking the quiet, middle and upper-middle class community of 27,000 to its core.

"This is the most tragic thing we've ever encountered,'' said Newtown Police Lt. George Sinko. "We have to think about the families right now."

Sandy Hook Elementary Principal Dawn Hochsprung is one of the victims who died, said Gerald Stomski, first selectman of Woodbury, Conn. He said police told him that Hochsprung died in the attack.

He says she was a principal in Woodbury until a few years ago. He says residents were mourning her death.

Stomski says she had "an extremely likable style."

Hochsprung had been principal at Sandy Hook Elementary since 2010. Hochsprung had frequently tweeted photos from her job and wrote upbeat tweets about what was going on at the school.

More hauntingly, several publications report she wrote a letter before the school year outlining new safety measures including locked doors during school hours.

On Friday night, hundreds of people packed the St. Rose of Lima church in Newtown, while hundreds more stood outside, to remember the victims. Some held hands in circles and offered prayers. Others lit candles and sang Silent Night.

Nearly 100 members of the Grace family church congregaton lit candles and "prayed for the comfort of the families and the peace that comes over your soul when you're in the midst of a difficult situation," said Rich Guerrera, who attended the service with his wife Donna and his daughter Gina.

In brief appearance Friday night, Gov. Dan Malloy described the youngest victims as "beautiful children who had simply come to school to learn."

On Friday afternoon, family members were led away from a firehouse that was being used as a staging area, some of them weeping. One man, wearing only a T-shirt without a jacket, put his arms around a woman as they walked down the middle of the street, oblivious to everything around them.

Another woman with tears rolling down her face walked by carrying a car seat with a young infant inside and a bag that appeared to have toys and stuffed animals.

Alexis Wasik, a third-grader at the school, said police were checking everybody inside the school before they were escorted to the firehouse. She said she heard shots and saw her former nursery school teacher being taken out of the building on a stretcher but didn't know if the woman had been shot.

"We had to walk with a partner," said Alexis, 8. One child leaving the school said that there was shattered glass everywhere. A police officer ran into the classroom and told them to run outside and keep going until they reached the firehouse, The Hartford Courant reported.


Unidentified people leave the scene of a shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that left 27 dead, including the gunman.(Photo: By Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images)
Children are likely to be traumatized, says Dr. Victor Fornari, director of Child/Adolescent Psychiatry at North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, N.Y. Schools are supposed to be safe, nurturing environment. The shooting shatters that belief. Listening to children and trying to be supportive and reassuring can be helpful, Fornari says.

James Alan Fox of Northeastern University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice said Friday's incident seems reminiscent of several from the late 1980s involving shooting rampages at schools.

Fox couldn't speak to the specifics of the Connecticut case, but said, "If someone is interested in punishing society where it's most vulnerable, they know that a school is a place where lots of young, innocent children, our most cherished members of society, are congregated and under their gun -- literally."

Still, in the past few years, shootings in K-12 schools have become increasingly rare. After reaching a high of 63 deaths in the 2006-2007 school year, the number of people killed in "school-associated" incidents dropped to 33 last year -- lowest in two decades, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

While a few dozen children are killed each year in school, statistically speaking, it remains the safest place a child will likely ever be, with the lowest chance of being killed. "When you consider the fact that there are over 50 million schoolchildren in America, the chances are over one in 2 million, not a high probability," said Fox. "And most cases that do occur are in high schools and less so in middle schools -- and hardly ever in elementary schools."

 

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Guns dont kill people,,,people kill people,,charleston heston quote

 

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Many were shot point blank in the face.

 

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Moment accountant sibling of school shooter saw himself named as killer on TV in case of mistaken identity

 

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Ryan Lanza was working at his desk at the Ernst and Young when he saw CNN reporting that he had killed 30 people at an elementary school in Connecticut.

It was the moment a stunned Ryan realized what his brother, Adam, might have done.

Lanza told his boss that: 'I need to go.' Then he walked out from Times Square office of the tax real-estate group, according to a co-worker who spoke to MailOnline on condition of anonymity.

Thirty minutes later, New York cops stormed in the office.

Between leaving the office and being taken in for questioning, Lanza defended himself in a series of bizarre Facebook posts after he was mistakenly named as the killer when his ID was reportedly found at the scene.

Lanza, 24, seemed unaware that his younger brother, Adam Lanza, had gunned down 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown before taking his own life.

'Everyone shut the f*** up it wasn't me,' he insisted on his Facebook page on Friday. 'I'm on the bus home now it wasn't me. IT WASN'T ME I WAS AT WORK IT WASN'T ME.'

Brett Wilshe, a friend of Ryan Lanza's, told the AP that he sent Ryan a Facebook message Friday asking what was going on and if he was alright.

According to Wilshe, Lanza's reply was something along the lines of: 'It was my brother. I think my mother is dead. Oh my God.'

Adam Lanza attended Newtown High School, and several local news clippings from recent years mention his name among the school's honor roll students.

A neighbor in Newtown, Rhonda Cullens, said she knew Nancy Lanza from monthly get-togethers the neighborhood women had a few years back for games of bunco, a dice game. 'She was a very nice lady,' Cullens told the Associated Press.

'She was just like all the rest of us in the neighborhood, just a regular person.' Cullens recalled that Lanza liked to garden and to make her house look nice for the holidays.

Lanza joked, though, that no one noticed because the house was out of view, up a hill, she said.

The Associated Press said the mix-up came after an official mistakenly transposed the brothers' first names, while a New Jersey reporter said Ryan Lanza told him the killer may have had his ID.

He is now being questioned by police in Hoboken, New Jersey, but police said he is not a suspect.

Adam Lanza, 20, was dressed in black military gear and a bullet proof vest when he opened fire in the principal's office and then moving to a kindergarten classroom where his mother, Nancy, taught.

Sources told the New York Post that Lanza had 'had a dispute with' his mother, who was found dead at her home. He then drove to the school in her car and gunned down her kindergarten class, Fox reported.

Lanza died of a self-inflicted gun wound at the scene. The Newtown Patch reported that he may have been developmentally disabled.

The Associated Press reported that Lanza's girlfriend and another friend are missing in New Jersey.

His father, Peter Lanza, who was divorced from Nancy, declined to comment at his home in Stamford on Friday when reporters told him about his connection to the shooting.

Police surrounded a Hoboken apartment, believed to be the home of Ryan Lanza, on Grand Street on Friday afternoon.

According to sources, Adam Lanza drove to the scene of the shootings in his mother's car and opened fire at 9.41am on Friday.

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.

The identities of the other victims have not yet been released but include the school principal, Dawn Hochsprung, and psychologist. Two of the children died while on the way to hospital.

Robert Licata said his six-year-old son was in class when the gunman burst in and shot the teacher.

'That's when my son grabbed a bunch of his friends and ran out the door,' he said. 'He was very brave. He waited for his friends.'

Stephen Delgiadice said his eight-year-old daughter heard two big bangs and teachers told her to get in a corner. His daughter was fine.

'It's alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America,' he said.

A dispatcher at the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps said a teacher had been shot in the foot and taken to Danbury Hospital.

Andrea Rynn, a spokeswoman at the hospital, said it had three patients from the school but she did not have information on the extent or nature of their injuries.

'It was my brother. I think my mother is dead. Oh my God'

 

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Loss: Emilie Parker, 6, was killed when a shooter went on a horrific shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School

Loving family: Robbie Parker, pictured with his wife and three daughters with Emilie on the far right

Horrible day: Robert and Alissa Parker pictured yesterday leaving the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire House in tears after they found out their daughter was killed

Disbelief: The couple walk away from the firehouse Friday after the gunman opened fire, killing 26, including 20 children

Heartbreaking moment devastated father fought back tears as he paid tribute to his beautiful daughter and selflessly offered forgiveness to killer's family
The father of one of the children slain in yesterday’s Sandy Hook Elementary shooting offered forgiveness to the shooter, saying his love went out to them as well.

Robbie Parker, who lost his six-year-old daughter Emilie in the massacre yesterday said: 'I’d live to offer our deepest condolences to all the families who were directly affected. It’s a horrific tragedy, and our hearts go out to them.

'This includes the family of the shooter, and I want you to know that our love and support go out to you as well.’

 

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The British victim of the Sandy Hook massacre: Dylan Hockley, six, killed in cold blood by goth after his family started new life in U.S.

Tragic: Dylan Hockley was one of 26 people brutally murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on Friday

 

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PICTURED: The mother of massacre gunman Adam Lanza who taught son how to shoot before he went on killing rampage

Nancy Lanza took her son, Adam, to a shooting range and taught him how to use a firearm before he turned a gun on her and shot her dead, then executed more than two dozen terrified children and teachers at an elementary school.

Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza was an avid gun collector who had legally purchased five firearms, all registered in Connecticut, according to police records.

'She said she would often go target shooting with her kids,' Dan Holmes, owner of the lanscaping firm Holmes Fine Gardens, told Reuters.
He recalled that she once showed him a 'high-end rifle' that she had purchased.

'She was very proud of it,' he told the New York Daily News. 'She loved her guns.'

Adam killed his mother in the home they shared on Friday morning by shooting her in the face using one of her own guns.

Adam then allegedly took his mother's car keys and several guns belonging to her - including a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, and a .223 caliber rifle - and drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he massacred 20 children and six adults, before shooting himself.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it was widely reported that Nancy Lanza was a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school. But Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said Saturday that she had 'never met' Miss Lanza and that she was not in the school database as a staff member.

 

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She threw herself in front of the gunman to save her students: Astonishing story of the brave teacher who died protecting children from 'deeply disturbed' killer

A young teacher displayed astonishing bravery and sacrificed her life saving as many children in her first grade class as she could after she came face-to-face with gunman Adam Lanza.

Victoria Soto, 27, had worked at Sandy Hook Elementary for five years. Her final moments were spent ushering her students into a closet when Lanza entered her classroom and she tried her best to shield the children from the evil gunman.

Soto was a highly regarded young teacher who was popular with her pupils. One young student, Jacob Riley, told Mailonline that Soto was known for chewing gum in class - something not usually allowed for teachers. He said he had often teased her about her habit and she had playfully teased him back.

 

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Ana Marquez-Green 6

Jesse Lewis 7

 

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Lost: Six-year-old Noah Pozner (pictured on Nov. 13, 2012) was one of the victims in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14

 

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Six-year-olds James Mattioli and Jessica Rekos were also among the victims

 

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Six-year-olds Charlotte Bacon

Six-year-olds Olivia Engel

 

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Chase Kowalski, 7, was killed in the tragedy

 

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Principal Dawn Hochsprung

School psychologist Mary Sherlach, 56

teacher Lauren Rousseau, 30

 

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the selfish, greedy and bitter people will do incredible terrible things against their own conscience.

 

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Adam Lanza quarreled with four teachers day before he shot three

Reports say that Adam Lanza visited the school the day before the massacre and was involved in an altercation with four members of the school staff. He killed three of the staff members the next day, the fourth escaped because she was not at school.
According to the Daily Mail, Lanza reportedly got into an altercation with members of staff, including Principal Dawn Hochsprung and teacher Victoria Soto both of whom he shot the next day.
Reuters reports that the issue involved his mother with whom he got so enraged that he shot her in the face and then drove, presumably in rage, to Sandy Hook Elementary School, armed with three guns he drew from his mother's arsenal and shot three other teachers he had quarreled with the day before.
The fourth teacher who escaped being shot because she was not at school is now being interviewed by police investigators who have not revealed the subject of the argument between the teachers and Lanza.
Police are hoping that the testimony of the survivor would help to establish the motive behind the shooting. The Daily Mail reports that Connecticut State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance, said: "Our investigators at the crime scene ... did produce some very good evidence in this investigation that our investigators will be able to use in, hopefully, painting the complete picture as to how - and more importantly why - this occurred. We're hopeful it will paint a complete picture."
According to the police, Adam Lanza, contrary to reports that the school principal Mrs Hochsprung, allowed him to by-pass the newly-installed security system, forced his way in. Reuters reports that the school had installed a buzzer on the front door and a security camera in the hall shortly before the shooting.
The Hartford Courant reports that a letter the school principal sent to parents after the security system was installed, said:
Dear Members of our Sandy Hook Family,
Our district will be implementing a security system in all elementary schools as part of our ongoing efforts to ensure student safety. As usual, exterior doors will be locked during the day. Every visitor will be required to ring the doorbell at the front entrance and the office staff will use a visual monitoring system to allow entry. Visitors will still be required to report directly to the office and sign in. If our office staff does not recognize you, you will be required to show identification with a picture id. Please understand that with nearly 700 students and over 1,000 parents representing 500 SHS families, most parents will be asked to show identification.
Digital Journal reports that after he forced his way into the school building on Friday morning, Lanza opened fire, murdering 26 people before turning the gun on himself. The Daily Mail reports that the tragedy struck as the school opened for first lessons in the morning.
According to Digital Journal, he massacred nearly an entire classroom of students before he moved to the next where he shot several. The Daily Mail reports witnesses say he may have fired as many as a 100 rounds.
According to Digital Journal, his former high school mates remember him as an awkward "nerd" who kept to himself, though he was academically brighter than most.
Digital Journal reports that his mother was an avid gun collector who legally owned a Sig Sauer and a Glock. The Daily Mail reports that both handguns he reportedly used in the shooting belonged to his mother and were models commonly used by police. He also carried a military-style Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine that belonged to his mother.
The Daily Mail reports that Dan Holmes, owner of a landscaping business who helped to decorate Nancy Lanza's yard with Christmas garlands and lights, said she once showed him a "really nice, high-end rifle" she had purchased. She told him "she would often go target shooting with her kids."
The death toll from the shooting exceeded the notorious 1999 shooting involving two teenagers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, who murdered 13 students and staff before killing themselves, the Daily Mail reports.
Digital Journal also reports that the White House petitions page has been inundated with gun control petitions following the tragic shooting.

Adam Lanza, circled in red, in a photograph of his high school science club taken five years ago when the murderer was 15 years old

 

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ON leafy Yogananda Street, home to Nancy Lanza and her son Adam Lanza, the accused US school gunman, former school mates remembered him as an intelligent but strange young man.

“He was a weird kid as a child, but he was just quiet. We never knew his real personality. He was just himself,” said Megan, aged 20, who went to primary school with the presumed shooter, and declined to give her last name.

“I knew he lived in the area. But he fell off of the radar halfway through middle school, maybe seven or eight years ago,” she said in this usually sleepy, wealthy town north of New York City, jarred by unthinkable tragedy.

Lanza, 20, used a Bushmaster .233 rifle - designed for shooting people in military assaults - and owned by his mother Nancy.

Police believe Adam murdered his mother, shooting her in the face before heading to the school.


There he unleashed a wave of terror authorities say was the deadliest massacre at a US grade school, shocking the United States with the apparently senseless and staggering targeting of one innocent child after another.

“As long as I remember he was very intellectually sound at school,” Megan said of her old classmate Adam.

Getting to Nancy Lanza's home is almost impossible; police have it closed off as a second crime scene in the town due to her murder.

It also is hard to find neighbours able or willing to speak about the family in a neighbourhood of plush, sprawling single family homes with huge lawns down rolling hills.

Another young man who lives nearby and also refused to give his name rode over on a skateboard and spoke about Adam Lanza.

“I knew Adam cause I went to school in the same bus,” he said. “We ate lunch, played chess. He was very smart.

“He was kind of kid that, in the computer classes, where me and other kids had a hard time 'cause we had two seconds to do something. Then he would just go in and get it done.”

The young man said he was unaware of any talk of weapons in the Lanza home, before popping his hood over his head and skating off away from photographers.

While school friends recalled facets of Adam's personality, the family was basically not well known to many neighbours, like relative newcomers the Strocchia family.

“They are a mystery. Nobody knows about them. A lot of the people in this neighborhood know each other. It was very hard to find that I didn't know them and nobody on the block knew them,” said Len Strocchia, 46, who has lived on the same street as the Lanzas for six years.

Though he was remembered as a shy and awkward boy, Lanza had not apparently given any warning sign that he could be a mass murderer in the making.

 

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Adam Lanza is being described as a "deeply disturbed kid" who was "subject to outbursts."

The 20-year-old man who killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School after murdering his own mother, may also have suffered from Asperger's syndrome or another personality disorder.

“This was a deeply disturbed kid,” a family insider told the New York Daily News. “He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall.

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"He was smart,” the insider said. “He was like one of these real brainiac computer kind of kids.”

Another family friend said Lanza had a condition where he couldn't feel pain.

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“A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn’t fall because he could get hurt and not feel it,” the friend told the Daily News. “Adam had a lot of mental problems.”

Adam's father, Peter Lanza, is an executive at GE Energy Financial Services and lives in Stamford with his second wife. He and Adam's mother, Nancy, divorced in 2010. That's also reportedly the last time Ryan Lanza, a rising star at the huge accounting firm of Ernst & Young, saw his brother.

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Nancy Lanza had previously worked at Sandy Hook but several sources said they believed she was more recently spending her days caring for the troubled Adam.

Tragically, the three weapons Adam carried into the school on the day of his massacre -- a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both semi-automatic handguns, and a 223 Bushmaster, a military style assault weapon -- all were owned by and registered to Nancy Lanza.