US shooting: Gunman shot some victims multiple times

Adam Lanza, the gunman who massacred 27 people, including 20 school children, reportedly shot all his victims several times with a high-powered rifle. Most of the victims were shot at a very close range, as per news agency report.

20-year-old gunman, Adam Lanza, killed his mother and 26 other people, including 20 children in a Connecticut elementary school before apparently killing himself.

The gunman had forced his way into the building before he went about brutally shooting young children, some of whom hid in closets and barricaded themselves in bathrooms out of terror, police said on Saturday. Law enforcement officials said Adam Lanza, who ended his killing spree by turning the gun on himself, had dawned combat gear and was armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle.

When the principal and teachers tried to intervene, they, too, were shot dead, they said.
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.

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.

Police shed no light on what triggered Adam Lanza, 20, to carry out the second-deadliest school shooting in US 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.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama will travel to Newtown, to meet with victims’ families.