LF: CBS News: 26 Dead, Including 18 Children, In Elementary School Shooting (WH Carney talks gun ban)

Title: CBS News: 26 Dead, Including 18 Children, In Elementary School Shooting (WH Carney talks gun ban)
Source: CBS Connecticut
URL Source: http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/201 ... oting-leaves-multiple-injured/
Published: Dec 14, 2012
Author: CBS Connecticut/AP
Post Date: 2012-12-14 14:21:36 by Hondo68
Keywords: None
Views: 34925
Comments: 53

credit: WCBS-TV

CBS News’ John Miller reports there is preliminary information that the gunman was the father of one of the students. Miller additionally reports the gunman is 20 years old and is from New Jersey.

CBS News is confirming that a second body has been found in the New Jersey home of the shooter.

A law enforcement official in Washington said the attacker was a 20-year-old man with ties to the school and that one of the guns was a .223-caliber rifle. The official also said that New Jersey State Police were searching a location in that state in connection with the shootings. That official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the developing criminal investigation. It is not known whether the shooter took his own life or was killed.

“The shooter is deceased inside the building,” State Police Lt. Paul Vance said during a press conference, adding that the scene is secure.

CBS News reports that a potential second shooter is in custody and that SWAT is now investigating the home of the suspect.

A witness tells WFSB-TV that a second man was taken out of the woods in handcuffs wearing a black jacket and camouflage pants and telling parents on the scene, “I did not do it.”

Fox Connecticut reports that the shooting began in the kindergarten classroom.

“It’s just a bad situation,” Newtown Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Stoyak told CBS 2.

NPR is reporting that Connecticut is reaching out to other states to help with autopsies because they don’t have enough medical examiners.

Two students and a teacher were also injured in the shooting and they were taken to Dansbury Hospital, spokeswoman Diane Burke told CBS News York.

Parents flooded to Sandy Hook Elementary School, about 60 miles northeast of New York City, looking for their children in the wake of the shooting. Students were told to close their eyes by police as they were led from the building.

“It was a very orderly evacuation given the circumstances,” Connecticut Post reporter Brian Koonz told CBS New York.

One mother tells CBS 2 reporter Lou Young that it’s like a “war zone” in Newtown. Her child told Young he was about to deliver the attendance sheet to the principal’s office when bullets started going by his head and that a teacher pulled him into a classroom.

Another mother described to Young the devastation parents felt when they found out their children didn’t survive the shooting.

“All these parents were waiting for their children to come out. There were 20 parents that were just told that their children were dead,” she told Young.

Police responded to the school shooting at 9:41 a.m. WFSB-TV reporter Len Besthoff calls it a “chaotic scene.”

Stephen Delgiadice said his 8-year-old daughter heard two big bangs and teachers told her to get in a corner. His daughter was fine.

“It’s alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America,” he said.

Mergim Bajraliu, 17, heard the gunshots echo from his home and raced 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.

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.”

The school superintendent’s office says the district has locked down schools as a preventive measure to ensure the safety of students and staff. Schools in neighboring towns also were locked down as a precaution.

The White House said Barack Obama was notified of the shooting and his spokesman Jay Carney said the president had “enormous sympathy for families that are affected.”

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says he’s spoken with federal officials who have offered to provide help to the state and the Newtown community in the aftermath of a deadly grade school shooting.

Malloy arrived in Newtown on Friday afternoon, hours after a shooting that left the gunman dead and at least one teacher wounded.

The governor’s office said several state agencies, including emergency management, public health and the Department of Children and Families, will be coordinating the state’s response.

In addition, Malloy says State Police are coordinating law enforcement work with federal and local authorities.

This shooting rivals the massacres at Virginia Tech in 2007 where 32 people were killed and at Columbine High School in 1999 where 13 were gunned down.

The worst mass school murder in American history took place on May 18,1927 in Bath Township, Mich., when a former school board member set off three bombs that killed 45 people.

Carney at the White House says it's not the time to talk about a gun ban, but is unable to control himself, so talks about it anyway. Live Updates VIDIO: http://betaplayer.radio.com/player/1080-wtic-newstalk (1 image)

So..... when will it be the right time? When law abiding gun owners and sellers decide to turn in the loonies in their midst? They have proven in the past that they don't want to rat or weed out the crazies.

Teachers walking around with guns would present its own problems. I'm not saying I am for or against it.

I'm sure there are more than a few students that would be able to handle that responsibility, especially at the high school and college level.