As the names are read to the press, I and Le Reyna again express sadden and sorrow for the loss of such innocent lives by the hands of that deranged shooter Adam Lanza. The 20 year old from Newtown, Connecticut want on a mass shooting spree in which it started at his home where he shared with his mother.
The mother, Nancy Lanza was killed. The man went to the Sandy Hook Elementary School around 9:30 am and began shooting the principal, the school psychologist, a grade school kindergarten teacher, a first grade teacher, a substitute teacher, and another teacher. Then Lanza took his actions on the children.
The names are sourced through Associated Press and Wikipedia. We at Journal De La Reyna send our condolences to the family of the victims.
- Nancy Lanza (née Champion), 52, perpetrator's mother
- Rachel Davino, 29, teacher
- Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47, principal
- Anne Marie Murphy, 52, teacher
- Lauren Rousseau, 30, permanent substitute teacher
- Mary Sherlach, 56, school psychologist
- Victoria "Vicki" Soto, 27, first grade teacher
- Charlotte Bacon, 6
- Daniel Barden, 7
- Olivia Engel, 6
- Josephine Gay, 7
- Dylan Hockley, 6
- Madeline F. Hsu, 6
- Catherine Violet Hubbard, 6
- Chase Kowalski, 7
- Jesse Lewis, 6
- Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
- James Mattioli, 6
- Grace McDonnell, 6
- Emilie Parker, 6
- Jack Pinto, 6
- Noah Pozner, 6
- Caroline Previdi, 6
- Jessica Rekos, 6
- Avielle Richman, 6
- Benjamin Wheeler, 6
- Allison N. Wyatt, 6
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| Ana Marquez-Greene |
Details emerged as the brother Ryan is being questioned. The brother of Adam Lanza was mistaken as the perpetrator of the mass shooting. The media made a huge mistake and the internet lit up his page. It was confirmed by the brother that he had nothing to do with the shooting. The FBI, New Jersey and Connecticut state police are actively questioning him.
As I stated earlier, the Associated Press is going to be the only source I obtain most of my information from.
Some of the pictures may comes from Reuters, Associated Press and UPI.
Wikipedia detailed Lanza was born in Kingston, New Hampshire, where his parents had been married in 1981. Lanza attended St. Rose of Lima for middle school and then Newtown High School, where he was an honors student. He had no criminal record. Lanza lived with his mother at her house in Sandy Hook, located 5 miles (8 km) from the elementary school.
Lanza's connection to the elementary school has been unclear. Although initial reports stated that his mother was a teacher in the school, the school superintendent later disputed that.
Lanza's parents had divorced in 2009. Adam Lanza's father, a vice president and corporate tax accountant for GE Energy Financial Services and an adjunct professor at Northeastern University in Boston who lives in Stamford, Connecticut, originally declined to comment on the shootings.
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| Lauren Rousseau |
Lanza graduated from high school in 2010. It is not clear whether he held a job or was enrolled in a college at any time after graduation. There were suggestions that his mother was unable to work as well. Their family was supported by a $240,000 annual alimony paid by Lanza's father.
It was intially reported that two days before the massacre, Lanza went to a sporting goods store in Danbury, Connecticut, and tried to buy a rifle; he was not sold one because of the state's waiting period for gun sales. This information is still being confirmed according to news sources.
At the time of the shooting, Adam Lanza was carrying the identification of his older brother, leading police sources to initially report the sibling as the perpetrator. Adam Lanza's brother voluntarily submitted to questioning by police, but is not considered a suspect and was not taken into custody.
He said he had not been in touch with his brother since 2010.
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| Emilie Parker |
He told law enforcement that his brother Adam was believed to suffer from a personality disorder and was "somewhat autistic"; classmates said they had been told he had Asperger syndrome. Students and teachers who knew Adam Lanza in high school described him as "intelligent, but nervous and fidgety", saying he normally avoided attention. He was also described by his classmates as a goth. A bus driver who drove the Lanza brothers to and from school recalled them as "really nice boys, well-behaved".
According to former classmates of Adam Lanza's, he was socially uncomfortable; he is not known to have had any close friends in school.
The mainstream media's comments and speculation about autism and Asperger syndrome have been criticized by advocates of the autistic.
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| Vicki Soto |
Police investigated whether Lanza was the person who had been in a reported "altercation" with four staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School the day before the massacre. It was presumed that he killed two of such four staff members (the principal and the psychologist) and wounded the third (the vice-principal) in the attack; the fourth staff member was not at the school that day. But Lt. J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police noted in a news conference later that he knew of no reports about Lanza being involved in any altercations at the school.
A custodian ran through hallways, alerting classrooms in person.
First grade teacher Kaitlyn Roig, age 29, hid 14 students in a bathroom and barricaded the door, telling them to be completely quiet in order to keep them safe.
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| Noah Pozner |
Authorities recovered two 9mm handguns from the scene: one a Glock, and the other a SIG Sauer as well as a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle.
All the guns were semi-automatic; they were owned by and legally registered to Lanza's mother, who is reported to have been a gun enthusiast.
A fourth gun was found in the car he drove to the school.
According to the medical examiner, all victims were shot with the same "long weapon", presumably the Bushmaster rifle, and all were hit multiple times; one of the bodies had 11 gunshot wounds.
Adam Lanza was too young to own or carry either handgun under Connecticut law.
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| Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung |
The Associated Press reports that Lanza stormed into the building and shot 20 children at least twice with a high-powered rifle, executing some at close range and killing adults who tried to stop the carnage, authorities said Saturday. He forced his way into the school by breaking a window, officials said. Asked whether the children suffered, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver paused. "If so," he said, "not for very long."
The terrible details about the last moments of young innocents emerged as authorities released their names and ages - the youngest 6 and 7, the oldest 56. They included Ana Marquez-Greene, a little girl who had just moved to Newtown from Canada; Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old teacher who apparently died while trying to hide her pupils; and principal Dawn Hochsprung, who authorities said lunged at the gunman in an attempt to overtake him and paid with her life.
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| Mary Sherlach |
The tragedy has plunged Newtown into mourning and added the picturesque New England community of handsome Colonial homes, red-brick sidewalks and 27,000 people to the grim map of towns where mass shootings in recent years have periodically reignited the national debate over gun control but led to little change.
Faced with the unimaginable, townspeople sadly took down some of their Christmas decorations and struggled Saturday with how to go on. Signs around town read, "Hug a teacher today," "Please pray for Newtown" and "Love will get us through."
"People in my neighborhood are feeling guilty about it being Christmas. They are taking down decorations," said Jeannie Pasacreta, a psychologist who was advising parents struggling with how to talk to their children.
School board chairwoman Debbie Leidlein spent Friday night meeting with parents who lost children and shivered as she recalled those conversations. "They were asking why. They can't wrap their minds around it. Why? What's going on?" she said. "And we just don't have any answers for them."
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| Ryan Lanza was mistaken as the shooter. |
The tragedy brought forth soul-searching and grief around the globe. President Barack Obama planned to visit Newtown on Sunday. Families as far away as Puerto Rico planned funerals for victims who still had their baby teeth, world leaders extended condolences, and vigils were held around the U.S.
"Next week is going to be horrible," said the town's legislative council chairman, Jeff Capeci, thinking about the string of funerals the town will face. "Horrible, and the week leading into Christmas."
Police shed no light on what triggered Adam Lanza, 20, to carry out the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, though state police Lt. Paul Vance said investigators had found "very good evidence ... that our investigators will be able to use in painting the complete picture, the how and, more importantly, the why." He would not elaborate.
However, another law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators have found no note or manifesto from Lanza of the sort they have come to expect after murderous rampages such as the Virginia Tech bloodbath in 2007 that left 33 people dead.
Lanza shot to death his mother, Nancy Lanza, at the home they shared, then drove to the school in her car with at least three of her guns, forced his way in and opened fire, authorities said. Within minutes, he killed 20 children, six adults and himself.
Education officials said they had found no link between Lanza's mother and the school, contrary to news reports that said she was a teacher there. Investigators said they believe Adam Lanza attended Sandy Hook Elementary many years ago, but they had no explanation for why he went there Friday.
Authorities said Adam Lanza had no criminal history, and it was not clear whether he had a job. Lanza was believed to have suffered from a personality disorder, said a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Another law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness. People with the disorder are often highly intelligent. While they can become frustrated more easily, there is no evidence of a link between Asperger's and violent behavior, experts say.
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| Adam Lanza's first victim was his mother Nancy. |
The law enforcement officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation.
Richard Novia, the school district's head of security until 2008, who also served as adviser for the school technology club, of which Lanza was a member, said he clearly "had some disabilities."
"If that boy would've burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically," Novia said in a phone interview. "It was my job to pay close attention to that."
Amid the confusion and sorrow, stories of heroism emerged, including an account of Hochsprung, 47, and the school psychologist, Mary Sherlach, 56, rushing toward Lanza in an attempt to stop him. Both died.
There was also 27-year-old teacher Victoria Soto, whose name has been invoked as a portrait of selflessness and humanity among unfathomable evil. Investigators told relatives she was killed while shielding her first-graders from danger. She reportedly hid some students in a bathroom or closet, ensuring they were safe, a cousin, Jim Wiltsie, told ABC News.
"She put those children first. That's all she ever talked about," a friend, Andrea Crowell, told The Associated Press. "She wanted to do her best for them, to teach them something new every day."
There was also 6-year-old Emilie Parker, whose grieving father, Robbie, talked to reporters not long after police released the names of the victims but expressed no animosity, offering sympathy for Lanza's family.
"I can't imagine how hard this experience must be for you," he said.
On Saturday, Carver, the medical examiner, said that all the victims at the school were shot with a rifle, at least some of them up close, and that all were apparently shot more than once. All six adults killed at the school were women. Of the 20 children, eight were boys and 12 were girls.
Asked how many bullets were fired, Carver said, "I'm lucky if I can tell you how many I found."
Relatives of the shooter were at a loss for words.
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| All American flags are at half-staff. |
"The whole family is traumatized by this event," said Donald Briggs Jr., police chief of Kingston, N.H., who knows the family. "We reach out to the community of Newtown and express our heartfelt sorrow for this incomprehensible and profound loss of innocence," the family said in a statement.
James Champion, Nancy Lanza's brother and a retired police captain in Kingston, N.H., said through the police chief that he had not seen his nephew in eight years. Champion, who still works as a part-time officer, said he would not discuss what might have triggered the rampage since the case is under investigation.
Acquaintances describe the former honor student as smart but odd and remote.
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| Mourning day! |
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| Jesse Lewis |
Olivia DeVivo, now a student at the University of Connecticut, recalled that Lanza always came to school toting a briefcase and wearing his shirt buttoned all the way up. "He was very different and very shy and didn't make an effort to interact with anybody" in his 10th-grade English class, she said.
Lanza would also go through crises that would require his mother to come to school to deal with. Such episodes might involve "total withdrawal from whatever he was supposed to be doing, be it a class, be it sitting and read a book," said Novia, the tech club adviser.
When people approached Lanza in the hallways, he would press himself against the wall or walk in a different direction, clutching his black case "like an 8-year-old who refuses to give up his teddy bear," said Novia, who now lives in Tennessee.
Even so, Novia said his main concern about Lanza was that he might become a target for teasing or abuse by other students, not that he might become a threat.
"Somewhere along in the last four years there were significant changes that led to what has happened Friday morning," Novia said. "I could never have foreseen him doing that."
Nancy Lanza, who was once a stockbroker for John Hancock in Boston and once lived in Kingston, N.H., was a kind, considerate and loving person, Briggs said.
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| It's time to hug! |
"She was very involved in the community and very well-respected," Briggs said.
Lanza's family was struggling to make sense of what happened and "trying to find whatever answers we can," his father, Peter Lanza, said in a statement late Saturday that also expressed sympathy for the victims' families.
Sandy Hook Elementary will be closed next week - some parents can't even conceive of sending their children back, Leidlein said - and officials are deciding what to do about the town's other schools.
Asked whether the town would recover, Maryann Jacob, a clerk in the school library who took cover in a storage room with 18 fourth-graders during the shooting rampage, said: "We have to. We have a lot of children left."
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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jim Fitzgerald, Bridget Murphy, Pat Eaton-Robb and Michael Melia in Newtown; Adam Geller in Southbury, Conn.; and Stephen Singer in Hartford, Conn.
