Why Adam Lanza killed 20 school kids in cold blood
17 Dec 2012 6:47 AM IST
Twelve girls and eight boys. One had celebrated her seventh birthday just four days before her death. They included Charlotte and Jack, Noah and Grace. Dressed in ‘cute kid stuff,’ all 20 died when a heavily armed 20-year-old gunman forced his way into their school, Sandy Hook Elementary, and shot them and six women in an act of violence that has shattered their once-tranquil suburban town. ‘They were first-graders,’ said Connecticut chief medical examiner Dr H Wayne Carver II, before releasing the names of all the victims of the school shootings on Saturday.
Asked to describe the attack, Carver, who oversaw the autopsies of all the victims and conducted many himself, called it ‘the worst I have seen.’ The shooter, identified by law enforcement officials as Adam Lanza, killed his mother Nancy on Friday, then drove to the school where he gunned down another 26 people before taking his own life in one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history. He fired a rifle, shooting his victims multiple times. Parents identified their children through pictures, a process intended to minimize their shock, Carver said. Members of the close-knit community went into public mourning on Saturday as the depth of the tragedy became clear.
‘I don't know how to get through something like this,’ said Robbie Parker, a 30-year-old physician's assistant whose 6-year-old daughter Emilie was among the dead. ‘My wife and I don't understand how to process this and how to get our lives going,’ Parker told reporters. The oldest of his three kids, Emilie, ‘could just light up a room,’ he said. Police did not officially identify Lanza or his mother, but his father on Saturday issued a statement saying he too was struggling to understand his son's actions. ‘No words can truly express how heartbroken we are,’ Peter Lanza said. ‘We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can.’ While Americans have seen many mass shootings in the past decades, the victims have rarely been so young.
OBAMA TO JOIN VIGILS
President Barack Obama was due in the small Connecticut community of Newtown on Sunday to join in vigils for the 20 small children and seven adults slaughtered by a young gunman.
The president’s visit comes two days after the heavily armed 20-year-old, Adam Lanza, stalked into the Sandy Hook elementary school and raked students, teachers and administrators with gunfire, after first killing his mother in their home - in one of the worst mass shootings in US history.
The tragedy has revived calls for a debate on gun control, though the White House has scotched any suggestion that the politically explosive subject would be quickly reopened. And the political ramifications were far from the minds of most in this picturesque dormitory town, where parents of the survivors and the dead alike were struggling to come to terms with the stunning loss.
The National Football League announced its games will hold a moment of silence Sunday to remember the victims, with the New York Giants and New York Jets planning to wear an adhesive strip on their helmets marked ‘SHES,’ the acronym of Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Of all US campus shootings, the toll was second only to the 32 murders in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech University.
Asked to describe the attack, Carver, who oversaw the autopsies of all the victims and conducted many himself, called it ‘the worst I have seen.’ The shooter, identified by law enforcement officials as Adam Lanza, killed his mother Nancy on Friday, then drove to the school where he gunned down another 26 people before taking his own life in one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history. He fired a rifle, shooting his victims multiple times. Parents identified their children through pictures, a process intended to minimize their shock, Carver said. Members of the close-knit community went into public mourning on Saturday as the depth of the tragedy became clear.
‘I don't know how to get through something like this,’ said Robbie Parker, a 30-year-old physician's assistant whose 6-year-old daughter Emilie was among the dead. ‘My wife and I don't understand how to process this and how to get our lives going,’ Parker told reporters. The oldest of his three kids, Emilie, ‘could just light up a room,’ he said. Police did not officially identify Lanza or his mother, but his father on Saturday issued a statement saying he too was struggling to understand his son's actions. ‘No words can truly express how heartbroken we are,’ Peter Lanza said. ‘We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can.’ While Americans have seen many mass shootings in the past decades, the victims have rarely been so young.
OBAMA TO JOIN VIGILS
President Barack Obama was due in the small Connecticut community of Newtown on Sunday to join in vigils for the 20 small children and seven adults slaughtered by a young gunman.
The president’s visit comes two days after the heavily armed 20-year-old, Adam Lanza, stalked into the Sandy Hook elementary school and raked students, teachers and administrators with gunfire, after first killing his mother in their home - in one of the worst mass shootings in US history.
The tragedy has revived calls for a debate on gun control, though the White House has scotched any suggestion that the politically explosive subject would be quickly reopened. And the political ramifications were far from the minds of most in this picturesque dormitory town, where parents of the survivors and the dead alike were struggling to come to terms with the stunning loss.
The National Football League announced its games will hold a moment of silence Sunday to remember the victims, with the New York Giants and New York Jets planning to wear an adhesive strip on their helmets marked ‘SHES,’ the acronym of Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Of all US campus shootings, the toll was second only to the 32 murders in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech University.
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