By Miguel Llanos and Tracy Connor, NBC News
Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET: A
young man clad in black and carrying two handguns shot up an elementary
school in a small Connecticut town on Friday, leaving 18 small children
and eight adults dead in one the nation’s worst school massacres, law
enforcement officials said.
The gunman, described as a 20-year-old man from Connecticut,
was later found dead, a federal law enforcement official told NBC News. A
second person was in custody for a possible connection to the shooting,
NBC’s Pete Williams reported.
Students – mostly under age 10 --
described the terror that gripped Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown when the rampage began around 9:30 a.m., sparking a massive
police response that included SWAT officers going room to room to search
for victims.
The
Hartford Courant, citing unnamed sources, said many of the victims were in a kindergarten classroom.
"I
was in the gym and I heard a loud, like seven loud booms, and the gym
teachers told us to go in the corner, so we all huddled," one student
told NBC Connecticut. "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 and waited for our parents."
Dozens of emergency
vehicles
from across Fairfield County raced to the 600-student school, along
with panicked parents hoping to be reunited with their children.
“It
was horrendous,'' Brenda Lebinski, mother of a third-grader, said at
the 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.
Shannon Hicks / The Newtown Bee.
Children are led from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday after a reported shooting there.
One
parent picking up his young son said the shooting was “the most
terrifying moment a parent can imagine.” He described the anguish of
waiting to find out if his son was a victim and then running to his
child.
“It was the greatest relief in my existence,” the father said. “I’m just happy that my kid’s OK.”
Bracing
for a large influx of wounded, Danbury Hospital went on lockdown and
cleared four trauma rooms. It received only three patients, including a
teacher shot in the foot, the Associated Press reported.
The motive for the shooting was unknown, and the gunman’s name was not released.
Two
9mm handguns were recovered from the scene, an official told WNBC's
Jonathan Dienst. The Associated Press said one of the guns was
a.223-caliber rifle.
The FBI was on the scene, assisting with the investigation.
President Obama was told of the shooting at 10:30 a.m.
"I
think it's important on a day like today to view this as I know the
president, as a father does, and I as a father and others who are
parents certainly do, which is to feel enormous sympathy for families
that are affected,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
BreakingNews.com's coverage of the incident
Swarming police response in mall shooting highlights 'paradigm shift'
The death toll is the highest from a school shooting in U.S. history 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.
Parent
Stephen Delgiadice, whose 8-year-old daughter was not hurt, said he
never could have imagined such carnage in the small bedroom community –
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.
