Children among 27 dead in shooting at CONNECTICUT elementary school The liberal press will push for more gun control Laws.

Lt. Paul Vance of the Connecticut state police confirms both students and staff of the Sandy Hook Elementary School are among the fatalities, as is the suspected shooter. The liberal press will push for more gun control Laws.

By Pete Williams, Miguel Llanos and Tracy Connor, NBC News

Updated at 5:26 p.m. ET: A kindergarten teacher's son -- clad in black and carrying two 9mm pistols -- rampaged through his mother's Connecticut elementary school Friday, killing 20 small children and six adults, a tragedy President Obama said had broken the hearts of America.

For up-to-the-minute coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Creek Elementary, stay with NBCNews.com, and tune in to your local NBC station to watch tonight’s special reports on NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC.

The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was found dead at the scene of the slaughter, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, law enforcement officials said. Police believe Lanza is also responsible for the death of an unidentified woman who had been fatally shot in the face at a home in Newtown.
Officials had initially misidentified the shooter to NBC News as Lanza's brother, Ryan. But a senior official later said that Ryan was nowhere near the shooting, is not believed to be involved, and is cooperating with the investigation. Ryan told police that Adam has a history of mental illness, according to the senior official.

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Evil visited this community today," Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said Friday evening. "We are all in this together."
The weapons used in the attack were legally purchased and were registered to the gunman's mother, two law enforcement officials said.
Some young survivors -- ages 5 to 10 -- described the terror of the shooting and a massive police response that included SWAT officers going room to room to search for victims as students huddled in classroom corners.
Robert Licata said his 6-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 Associated Press. "He was very brave."
One student told NBC Connecticut she was in the gym when she heard “seven loud booms.”
“The gym teachers told us to go in the corner, so we all huddled,” she said. "And I kept hearing these booming noises. And we all … started crying.
"All the gym teachers told us to go into the office where no one could find us," she added. "So then a police officer came in and told us to run outside. So we did and we came in the firehouse.”

More coverage: NBCNewYork.com and NBCConnecticut.com BreakingNews.com's coverage of the incident

The high death toll and the tender age of many victims sent shock waves all the way to the White House, where the flag was lowered to half-staff.

President Obama, his voice cracking at times, said he reacted to the tragedy first as a parent.

"Our hearts are broken today,'' he said. “The majority of those who died today were children. Beautiful little kids between the ages of five and ten years old.”

Authorities in the small bedroom community 60 miles from New York City were alerted to the unfolding carnage by a 911 call around 9:30 a.m., and then reached
out to state police and neighboring police departments for help. The Liberal press will Push More for gun control laws.

An elementary school student recalls the terrifying moments following sounds of shots fired at her Connecticut elementary school, saying "teachers told us to go

In the corner so we all huddled."

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Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said troopers fanned out across the school and searched “every door, every crack, every crevice” of the Building.

Most of the bodies were found in two rooms in one section of the 600-student school, which goes up to the fourth grade.
Two children were taken to Danbury Hospital, but they died. A third person was being treated at the hospital, which went into lockdown mode and cleared trauma rooms as doctors waited for an influx of survivors that never came.
After police finished searching the school and determined there was only one gunman, they led the children outside, telling them to close their eyes, apparently to avoid seeing anything gruesome.
At a staging area ringed by police vehicles that raced to the school from across the state, the dazed and crying kids were reunited with worried loved ones.
Brenda Lebinski, mother of a third-grader, said she found a “horrendous” scene.
“Everyone was in hysterics -- parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied. I don't know if they were shot, but they were bloodied,'' she said, according to Reuters.

One parent picking up his 7-year-old son said the shooting was “the most terrifying moment a parent can imagine." He went on to describe the anguish of waiting

to find out if his son was a victim and then running to his child when he saw him.
“It was the greatest relief in my existence,” the father said. “I’m just happy that my kid’s OK.”
Two 9mm handguns were recovered from the scene, an official told NBCNewYork.com, and a rifle was found in the back of a car parked outside the school.
The FBI was assisting with the widening investigation, and authorities said there were many unanswered questions, including the motive.
“There is a great deal of search warrant activity…in and out of the state,” Vance said, without giving specifics.
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy was meeting

with grieving families.
“As you can imagine, the governor is horrified by what’s happened,” said aide Roy Occhiogrosso.
The death toll is the highest from a school

shooting since a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007. At Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, two teens killed 13 people and wounded 24 in 1999.

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Parent Stephen Delgiadice, whose 8-year-old daughter was not hurt, said he never could have imagined Such

Bloodshed in the quiet town of 27,000, where the police force has only three detectives. "It's alarming,

Especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America," he told The

Associated Press. Obama said Friday’s shooting, following the massacre at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.,

And other murder sprees, showed the need for

“meaningful action…regardless of the politics” to prevent more

blood from being spilled. New York City Mayor Bloomberg, who has been pushing for tougher gun laws, called for Washington to act immediately. “Not even

Klearning their A, B, Cs are safe,” he said. “We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech.

After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again.”

Slideshow: Connecticut school massacre

Michelle Mcloughlin / Reuters

The second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history sent crying children spilling into the school parking lot as frightened parents waited for word on their loved ones.

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Megyn Kelly: When a parent dies, you lose your past; when a child dies, you lose your future. This was act of terrorism call for what it is. Krystal Richardson

Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said troopers fanned out across the school and searched “every door, every crack, every crevice” of the building.

Most of the bodies were found in two rooms in one section of the 600-student school, which goes up to the fourth grade.

Two children were taken to Danbury Hospital, but they died. A third person was being treated at the hospital, which went into lockdown mode and cleared trauma

rooms as doctors waited for an influx of survivors that never came.

After police finished searching the school and

determined there was only one gunman, they led the children outside, telling them to close their eyes, apparently to

avoid seeing anything gruesome.

At a staging area ringed by police vehicles that raced to the school from across the state, the dazed and crying kids were reunited with worried loved ones.

Brenda Lebinski, mother of a third-grader, said she found a “horrendous” scene.

“Everyone was in hysterics -- parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied. I don't know if they were shot, but they were bloodied,'' she

said, according to Reuters.

One parent picking up his 7-year-old son said the shooting was “the most terrifying moment a parent can imagine." He went on to describe the anguish of waiting

to find out if his son was a victim and then running to his child when he saw him.

“It was the greatest relief in my existence,” the father said. “I’m just happy that my kid’s OK.”

Two 9mm handguns were recovered from the scene, an official told NBCNewYork.com, and a rifle was found in the back of a car parked outside the school.

The FBI was assisting with the widening investigation, and authorities said there were many unanswered questions, including the motive.

“There is a great deal of search warrant activity…in and out of the state,” Vance said, without giving specifics.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy was meeting with grieving families.

“As you can imagine, the governor is horrified by what’s happened,” said aide Roy Occhiogrosso.

The death toll is the highest from a school shooting since a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007. At Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado,

two teens killed 13 people and wounded 24 in 1999.

2 hours ago near Lake Forest, IL

Lord Jesus in Heaven, I pray that you would hug us all real close and help us to feel safe and secure again..that we all can attain a sense of peace in the aftermath

of this horrific tragedy....Please bless all those who are hurting..help us as Christians to reach out to our fellow man and share his or her pain...thank you for being

there Amen

School shooting: Students are escorted out of the school in Newtown, Conn. IMAGE

1 hr ago By MSN News with wire reports

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Principal, school psychologist and gunman are also among the dead.

NEWTOWN, Conn. — At least 27 people were killed, including an unconfirmed number of children, in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday, according to reports from Reuters and The Associated Press. If confirmed, it would be one of

the worst mass shootings in U.S.

history. It comes after a series of shooting rampages in the United States this year that have killed multiple victims.

An entire classroom of students remains unaccounted for, according to a report by The Hartford Courant.

The suspected shooter, the father of a student there, was also killed, CBS News reported. The principal and school psychologist were among the dead, CNN said.

"It was horrendous," said parent Brenda Lebinski, who rushed to the school where her daughter is in the third grade. "Everyone was in hysterics - parents,
students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied. I don't know if they were shot, but they were bloodied."

Television images showed police and ambulances at the scene, and parents rushing toward the school. Parents were seen reuniting with their children and taking them home.

An official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way told the Associated Press the gunman apparently had two guns. The

school district remains on lockdown as police investigate the shootings. There are unconfirmed reports of two shooters, according to a local newspaper.

President Barack Obama has been notified about the shooting and will receive regular updates throughout the day, White House spokesman Jay Carney said on

Friday. Carney called the event "tragic" and said there would be time later for a discussion of policy implications.
Obama remains committed to trying to renew a ban on assault weapons, Carney said.

LIVE: Updates from the shooting site

Some students were reportedly being treated for trauma. A dispatcher at the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps said a teacher has been shot in the foot and

taken to Danbury Hospital. Dr. Patrick Broderick said the hospital had treated only three patients from the shooting scene. The hospital is on lockdown to protect

the privacy of victims and to allow staff to do their work unreported.

The school superintendent's office says the district has locked down schools as a preventive measure to ensure the safety of students and staff.

Man kills 27 at CONNECTICUT. school, including 20 kids

Official: 27 Dead in Conn. School ShootingAssociated Press Videos 2:01Police say 27 people were killed in the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, including the gunman, …

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A man opened fire Friday inside two classrooms at the Connecticut elementary school where his mother was a teacher, killing 26 people, including 20 children, as youngsters cowered in corners and closets and trembled helplessly to gunshots reverberating through the building.

The 20-year-old killer, carrying two handguns, committed suicide at the school, and another person was found dead at a second scene, bringing the toll to 28, authorities said.

Police shed no light on the motive for the attack. The gunman was believed to suffer from a personality disorder and lived with his mother in Connecticut, said a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation but was not authorized to publicly discuss it.

The rampage, coming less than two weeks before Christmas, was the nation's second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead in 2007.

Panicked parents looking for their children raced to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, a prosperous community of about 27,000 people 60 miles northeast of New York City. Youngsters at the kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school were told to close their eyes by police as they were led from the building.

Schoolchildren — some crying, others looking frightened — were escorted through a parking lot in a line, hands on each other's shoulders.

"Our hearts are broken today," a tearful President Barack Obama, struggling to maintain composure, said at the White House. He called for "meaningful action" to prevent such shootings.

Youngsters and their parents described teachers locking doors and ordering the children to huddle in the corner or hide in closets when shots echoed through the building. Authorities didn't say exactly how the shootings unfolded.
They also gave no details on the victim discovered at another scene, except to say that the person was an adult found dead by police while they were investigating the gunman.

A law enforcement official identified the gunman as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the son of a teacher. A second law enforcement official said his mother, Nancy Lanza, was presumed dead.

Adam Lanza's older brother, 24-year-old Ryan, of Hoboken, N.J., was being questioned.

The law enforcement official who said Adam Lanza had a possible personality disorder said Ryan Lanza had been extremely cooperative, was not believed to have any involvement in the rampage and was not under arrest or in custody, but investigators were still searching his computers and phone records. Ryan Lanza told law enforcement he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.

All three law enforcement officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the unfolding investigation.
The gunman drove to the school in his mother's car, the second official said. Three guns were found — a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, inside the school, and a .223-caliber rifle in the back of a car.
State police Lt. Paul Vance said 28 people in all were killed, including the gunman, and one person was injured.
Robert Licata said his 6-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."
He said the shooter didn't utter a word.
Stephen Delgiadice said his 8-year-old daughter was in the school and heard two big bangs. Teachers told her to get in a corner, he said.
"It's alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America," he said. His daughter was fine.
Mergim Bajraliu, 17, heard the gunshots echo from his home and ran to check on his 9-year-old sister at the school. He said his sister, who was fine, heard a scream come over the intercom at one point. He said teachers were shaking and crying as they came out of the building.
"Everyone was just traumatized," he said.
Mary Pendergast, who lives close to the school, said her 9-year-old nephew was in the school at the time of the shooting, but wasn't hurt after his music teacher helped him take cover in a closet.
Richard Wilford's 7-year-old son, Richie, is in the second grade at the school. His son told him that he heard a noise that "sounded like what he described as cans falling."
The boy told him a teacher went out to check on the noise, came back in, locked the door and had the kids huddle up in the corner until police arrived.
"There's no words," Wilford said. "It's sheer terror, a sense of imminent danger, to get to your child and be there to protect him."
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.
"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," Gov. Dannel Malloy said.
Adam Lanza and his mother lived in a well-to-do part of Newtown where neighbors are doctors or hold white-collar positions at companies such as General Electric, Pepsi and IBM.

The shootings instantly brought to mind episodes such as the Columbine High School massacre that killed 15 in 1999 and the July shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead.

"You go to a movie theater in Aurora and all of a sudden your life is taken," Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis said. "You're at a shopping mall in Portland, Ore., and your life is taken. This morning, when parents kissed their kids goodbye knowing that they are going to be home to celebrate the holiday season coming up, you don't expect this to happen. I think as a society, we need to come together. It has to stop, these senseless deaths."

Obama's comments on the tragedy amounted to one of the most outwardly emotional moments of his presidency.

"The majority of those who died were children — beautiful, little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old," Obama said.

He paused for several seconds to keep his composure as he teared up and wiped an eye. Nearby, two aides cried and held hands as they listened to Obama.

"They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, wedding, kids of their own," Obama continued about the victims. "Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children."

___

Associated Press writers Jim Fitzgerald and Pat Eaton-Robb in Newtown, Samantha Henry in Newark, N.J., Pete Yost in Washington and Michael Melia in Hartford contributed to this report.

Man kills 26 at Conn. school, including 20 kids

By By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN | Associated Press – 11 mins ago