27 Dead In Newtown School Shooting, Official Confirms [Updated]
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut is still a breaking story, but new reports have revealed some tragic bits of information about the rampage and its aftermath — including multiple reports that young children at the school are among the dead.
[UPDATE, 12:58 pm] Police confirm 18 of 27 killed were children.
The Newtown school shooting was first reported on Twitter and in breaking news places at around 10 am Eastern Standard Time, but little information was available about the situation. The Associated Press has just confirmed 27 people — among them some students, a school principal, and a school psychiatrist — were killed in the rampage.
Newtown school officials were at first reticent to confirm the shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, but reports began to circulate that at least one person, believed to be the shooter, had died.
Now new updates to the information available on the Connecticut school shooting indicate that children are among those that have been killed during the incident, likely the reason school officials were hesitant to confirm the situation publicly before all parents were contacted.
Other reports state that the gunman in the Newtown school shooting — who is said to be among the dead and remains in a classroom at the school — was a father to one of the school’s students. New York City blog Gothamist has pulled together some sources on the Newtown tragedy, stating that the principal and school psychologist are among the dead.
The total number of deaths remain unclear, but one tweet citing sources on the scene in Newtown suggests a very large number of casualties:
[Newtown school shooting]RT @lydkid: “This is really bad. Can’t share details, but really, really bad.” – source on site.
— Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys) December 14, 2012
DEVELOPING: @johnmillercbs reports preliminary information indicates a student’s father was CT school gunman cbsn.ws/live
— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 14, 2012
Officials on the scene confirm the death toll of 27 in Newtown, but it is not clear how many of those killed were children.
BREAKING: Official with knowledge of Conn. school shooting: 27 dead, including 18 children
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 14, 2012
