Victims identified in Connecticut school shooting, families ask for privacy

The medical examiner has positively identified all of the victims in Friday’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, according to Lieutenant Vance of the Connecticut State Police.

Officials were expected to release a full list of victims, including names and date of births, sometime Saturday afternoon.  

Investigators told a large crowd of media that had gathered that they know where the gunman entered the school.

“I can tell you that it’s believed he was not voluntarily let into the school at all, that he forced his way into the school,” Vance said.

Police are now investigating the motive of the killer, 20-year-old Adam Lanza. Officials said they have strong information about a motive, but stressed it was too early in the investigation to release such information.

The gunman killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at home then opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, where reports indicate his mother taught as a substitute teacher.

Evidence has been gathered from the secondary shooting location, according to Lieutenant Vance. Investigators have secured the school and are now examining vehicles parked on the property and the interior, looking for leads.

A crisis line has been set up to help people cope with the tragedy, and families of the victims are asking for privacy.

Vigils are being planned all around the United States following the shooting.

At the school 26 people, including 20 young children, were killed in the mass shooting. That makes it the second bloodiest shooting in American history, behind the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.

A total of 28 people are dead, including the gunman and his mother who was killed at the secondary scene, officials said.

According to the Associated Press, the gunman, Adam Lanza died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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Adam Lanza, was believed to suffer from a personality disorder and lived with his mother, a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation but was not authorized to discuss it told the Associated Press.

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years,” President Barack Obama said. “And each time I learn the news I react not as a president, but as anybody else would as a parent.”

“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.”

Read coverage of the Connecticut school shooting provided by the New Haven Register in New Haven, Conn.

The attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School was the latest of several mass shootings in the United States this year.

Photos from the scene showed students, some crying, others frightened. Children said they had heard bangs and at one point, a loud bang, over the intercom, according to the Associated Press.

Schoolchildren were escorted through a parking lot in a line, hands on each others’ shoulders.

State police said 18 children were found dead at the school and two later were declared dead. Six adults were found dead at the scene.

Authorities said he fired in two classrooms, but provided no further details.

Lanza’s older brother, 24-year-old Ryan, of Hoboken, N.J., was being questioned, but a law enforcement official said he was not believed to have had any role in the shooting.

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 uninjured.

Theodore Varga said he was in a meeting with other fourth-grade teachers when he heard the gunfire, but there was no lock on the door.

He said someone had turned on the intercom so that “you could hear people in the office. You could hear the hysteria that was going on. I think whoever did that saved a lot of people. Everyone in the school was listening to the terror that was transpiring.”

Also, a custodian ran around, warning people there was a gunman, Varga said.

“He said, ‘Guys! Get down! Hide!'” Varga said. “So he was actually a hero.” The teacher said he did not know if the custodian survived.

“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.

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