NEW YORK TIMES: A 20-year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with pistols and a semi-automatic rifle killed 26 people — 20 of them children — in an attack on Friday in an elementary school in wooded Connecticut. Witnesses and officials described a horrific scene as the gunman, with brutal efficiency, chose his victims in two specific classrooms while other students dove under desks and hid in closets.
Hundreds of terrified parents, fearing the worst, descended on the school in Newtown, about 65 miles north of New York City, after news of the shootings spread. Many arrived as their sobbing children were led out, each with a hand on the shoulder of the child in front. But by that time, all the victims were shot and most were dead, as was the gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, who committed suicide. The children who were killed were said to be from 5 to 10 years old.
A 28th person was found dead in a house in the town and was also believed to have been shot by Mr. Lanza. That victim, one law enforcement official said, was Mr. Lanza’s mother, Nancy Lanza, a teacher at the school, Sandy Hook Elementary School… (more)
USA TODAY: An emotional President Obama said the nation has “endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years.”
