For More Coverage on the Shooting:
The student who reported from his locked-down personal finance classroom just one hour after shooting began at a nearby Connecticut elementary school is home safe now.
Earlier today, Newtown High School senior Alex Lampel texted back and forth with Inklings while in lock-down about a mile and a half away from Sandy Hook Elementary School where, according to state police, 20 children and six adults were killed by a lone gunman. The shooter and another adult victim at a house in Newtown were also killed, bringing the total number of fatalities to 28.
Lt. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police Department said in a news conference that the shootings took place in two classrooms and in one section of the school.
At noon, Lampel and other students were finally allowed to return to classes and, eventually, leave the high school after two hours of lock-down.
“People were crying, parents were picking up their kids, also crying,” Lampel said.
The high school students, along with students in other local schools, were locked down because police feared more than one gunman was involved. News agencies identified the shooter as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who was found dead inside the school building. Earlier reports mistakenly indicated that the gunman was Lanza’s 24-year-old brother, Ryan.
The attack was the second-deadliest civilian massacre in United States history, behind only the 2007 attacks at Virginia Tech, in which 33 people died.
As soon as initial reports circulated through the Internet, Fairfield County students began sharing information– facts, names, and reactions flew from school to school.
Lampel texted, “Everyone is looking up stuff on the web and texting their parents.”
A little later, he continued, “We’re still in lock-down, but we’re looking out the window at the passing by police cars and ambulances and news vans. There’s like hundreds of them passing by– well not hundreds, but a lot.”
Students who had siblings at the elementary school reported to the high school’s lecture hall to make calls and be picked up.
View Sandy Hook Elementary School Location in a larger map
View Distance from Staples High School to Sandy Hook Elementary School in a larger map
