Newtown gunman kills 20 children in elementary school shooting

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America was confronted with one of its worst ever mass shootings on Friday when 20 children and six adults were shot dead by a gunman who opened fire at an elementary school in Connecticut. 

The massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, about 65 miles north-east of New York, is understood to have been carried out by a lone gunman, who was later found dead at the scene.
State police lieutenant Paul Vance said 18 children died at the scene and two more died in hospital. Six adults were found dead at the school, Vance said. The bodies of the victims remain inside the school.
Sandy Hook, which had recently updated its security procedures, teaches children from kindergarten to fourth grade, ages five to 10. 

The scale of the tragedy and the age of the victims shocked a country that has seen many mass shootings and prompted immediate calls for tougher gun controls. Barack Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, refused to engage with the issue, telling reporters at a White House briefing that "today was not the day".
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But later, in an emotional press conference at the White House, Barack Obama suggested that he may take action. Fighting back tears, he said: "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. I know there's not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do."
Citing a number of major shootings this year alone, Obama continued: "Whether it's an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago – these neighbourhoods are our neighbourhoods, and these children are our children. And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

Police said they had made a "tentative identification" of the gunman but would not confirm the name. The Associated Press and other news organisations quoted law enforcement sources naming Adam Lanza, 20.
His mother, Nancy, was presumed dead, law enforcement officials told AP.
Lanza's elder brother Ryan, 24, was questioned by police but is not believed to have any connection to the shooting. He had earlier been wrongly identified as the gunman, apparently because officials transposed the names when briefing journalists.
The school's principal, Dawn Hochsprung, 47, was one of the the victims, her relatives said. She was decribed by colleagues as a warm and energetic leader of the school. The school psychologist, Mary Sherlach, was another of the confirmed victims.
As darkness fell on Friday evening police were still refusing to confirm many of the details, including the identities of the victims.
At Saint Rose of Lima church in Newtown locals gathered to mourn the dead.
Hundreds crowded outside the packed church listening to the service through open windows. A group of young people linked arms and formed a circle while singing Silent Night, while others held candles and looked on. Some just wept.

 "It's awful. It's just one of the saddest things," said Suzanne Kelly. She was with her husband, Brian, and daughter Mattie, 16, who had attended Sandy Hook elementary. The family said they were still waiting to hear if former teachers were among the victims.
"It was really heartbreaking," Mattie said of hearing the news. "I just didn't expect it to happen anywhere. It was the least expected place for it to happen."
Agron Selmani, 23, stood praying quietly outside the church. "It's just a terrible tragedy. Twenty babies, along with six adults. I just wanted to come here and pray.
"I'm not a regular at this church at all. I'm not even Catholic, I'm a Muslim, but it doesn't matter right now."
Police said the first 911 call came just after 9.30am. As all schools were put on lockdown as a precaution, state and local officers responded to the scene and immediately entered the building to begin a thorough search of all classrooms.
"Our main objective was to evacuate … any and all students and faculty," Vance said.
Teachers had locked their classrooms and were sheltering under desks and in closets while the shooting went on. Some witnesses said they heard at least 100 shots.
The gunman was armed with two handguns, a Glock and a Sig Sauer. A third weapon, a .223 calibre rifle, was later found in the back of his car.

Pictures of the immediate aftermath of the shooting showed surviving children, many of them visibly upset, being led by police away from the building in a crocodile line with hands on each other's shoulders.
Some told their parents they had been told by the police officers evacuating the school to hold hands and close their eyes when passing certain rooms. The shootings took place in two rooms in one section of the school, police said.
Janet Vollmer, a teacher at the school who had 19 children in her class told CNN's Anderson Cooper how she locked the door and tried to keep the students calm.
"We heard pops, you know, gunshots but we're not going to tell that to 5-year-olds so we said we're going to go to a safe place and we read stories," she said.
"We kept them calm, we stayed in the room til there was banging at the door and that was the police. We said we're not really sure but we're going to be safe because we're sitting here and we're all together."
As news of the shooting began to circulate, parents were seen running toward the building to find out if their children were amongst those shot.
Young children at Sandy Hook gave accounts of the shooting to their parents. "They just told us how heroic their teachers were," said Howie Ziperstein, whose sons aged seven and nine were among the survivors. "One of my children was in the gym and was told to go in the corner and hide. When they saw a police officer coming who told them go run as fast as you can to the fire house."
Ziperstein's wife met the boys at the fire house and brought them home.
"My younger son said he heard gunshots," he said. "He said they locked doors and put desks in front of certain doors and just waited."
Ziperstein said the seven-year-old was finally able to leave the classroom when a police officer came to the door.
"There was a person with a gun laying on the ground; they had to walk around him," Ziperstein said. 

"They were told to keep their eyes closed, but what kid if you tell them to do that actually keeps their eyes closed."
Ziperstein was eventually reunited with his children at the family home. "It was just relief. They came running in the house and we hugged each other. It was almost like a miracle."
Richard Wilford's seven-year-old son, Richie, told of hearing a noise that sounded like cans falling at the time of the attack.
"I could try to explain it but I'm sure I would fail," said Wilford. "There's no words that I could come up with that would even come close to describing the sheer terror of hearing that your son is in a place, or your child's in a place, where there's been violence.
"You don't know the details of that violence, you don't know the condition of your child and you can't do anything to immediately help them or protect them. It is a powerless and terrifying experience."
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 told the AP. "He was very brave. He waited for his friends."
Licata said the shooter didn't say a word.
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.

The shooting comes towards the end of a year that has seen a number of mass shootings including an assault at a movie theatre in Colorado that killed 12 people and an attack at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that took the lives of six worshipers. On Monday two people were killed by a gunman at a shopping mall in Portland, Oregon.

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