A man killed his mother at home and then opened fire Friday inside a Connecticut elementary school, massacring 26 people, including 20 young children, as youngsters cowered in their classrooms and trembled helplessly to the sound of gunfire reverberating through the building.
The shooter, who sources identified as Adam Lanza, 20, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the face at their home in Newtown, Conn., then went to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School where she taught and gunned down her entire class, bringing the death toll to 28, according to sources.
Lanza was found dead inside the school, according to officials. Eighteen of the children and six more adults were dead at the school and two more children died later, according to Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance.
The shooter was Ryan Lanza, 24.
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 claimed 33 lives in 2007.
Law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity said that Lanza killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, then drove to the school in her car with at least three guns, including a high-powered rifle that he apparently left in the back of the vehicle, and shot up two classrooms around 9:30 a.m.
A custodian ran through the halls, warning of a gunman on the loose, and someone switched on the intercom, alerting people in the building to the attack -- and perhaps saving many lives -- by letting them hear the hysteria going on in the school office, a teacher said. Teachers locked their doors and ordered children to huddle in a corner or hide in closets as shots echoed through the building.
The vehicle the suspect drove to the school was registered to his mother. At least 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, authorities said.
Sources told Fox News the guns used in the shooting were owned by and legally registered to Nancy Lanza.
Most of the children were between age 5 and 10 it makes me cry to thank what a world it is where you aren't even safe in your own school. These children had their whe lives ahead of them they could have had children of their own, marriages, graduation, hopes, dreams. But they were stripped of that so young. The parents probally already had presents from Santa hiding in their closet or garage. Those presents won't be opened and they will have to face that. No parent should ever have to bury their child. So on Monday wear blue, the school color, in remembrance of those young children who were killed in the mass murder.
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