Thread: Another shooting!

More than 25 dead....I can't even comprehend this.....

At least 26 dead in Connecticut school shooting, source says
Friday, December 14, 2012 - 11:30am

CNN — At least 26 people died Friday in a school shooting in Newtown Connecticut, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. At least 10 of the dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School were children, the source said. A parent who was inside the school at the time of the attack said she heard what sounded like at least 100 rounds being fired. She said she saw two school employees who had died.

Hospital officials in neighboring Danbury said they were treating three people wounded in the shooting. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said the victims were in "very serious" condition.

The shooter is dead, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN's Susan Candiotti. The suspect's body is in a classroom at the school, the source told CNN.

Police have recovered two weapons from the suspect, a Glock and a Sig Sauer, the source said. It's unclear if police killed the suspect.

The Newtown Bee newspaper said one child had been carried out by a police officer and emergency crews had set up triage facilities, expecting additional patients. The Hartford Courant newspaper said one victim had "numerous gunshot wounds."

Aerial images from CNN affiliate News 12 New Jersey showed police officers armed with rifles following a dog into woods near the school. Other officers, some in tactical gear, stood around the school with guns drawn, CNN affiliate WFSB reported.

A photograph published by The Newtown Bee showed teachers and police leading students out of the building across a parking lot.

One student, a third-grader, told CNN affiliate WTNH that she was sitting in her classroom when police flooded the area. "We saw police officers and we heard them on our roof and in our building," the girl said.

Some of the children were crying, and others felt they had a stomachache, she said. The girl's father told the station the incident was shocking. "I was pretty shaken up," he said.

All schools in the city were on lockdown Friday as police assessed the situation, state police spokesman Lt. Paul Vance said.

Students were evacuated to a nearby firehouse, the Danbury News-Times newspaper reported.

The first calls came into police around 9:40 a.m., according to media accounts.

Police scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m. ET.

Newtown is about 60 miles north of New York.

http://www.nbc33tv.com/news/national...ported-dead-at

TURN OFF THE NEWS.......

Morgan Freeman's brilliant take on what happened yesterday :

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.


It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

May the memories of these sweet children and their teachers be a blessing:

Charlotte Bacon, 2/22/06, female (age 6)
Daniel Barden, 9/25/05, male (age 7)
Rachel Davino, 7/17/83, female (age 29)
Olivia Engel, 7/18/06, female (age 6)
Josephine Gay, 12/11/05, female (age 7)
Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 04/04/06, female (age 6)
Dylan Hockley, 03/08/06, male (age 6)
Dawn Hocksprung, 06/28/65, female (age 47)

Madeleine F. Hsu, 07/10/06, female (age 6)
Catherine V. Hubbard, 06/08/06, female (age 6)
Chase Kowalski, 10/31/05, male (age 7)
Jesse Lewis, 06/30/06, male (age 6)
James Mattioli, 03/22/06, male (age 6)
Grace McDonnell, 11/04/05, female (age 7)
Anne Marie Murphy, 07/25/60, female (age 52)
Emilie Parker, 05/12/06, female (age 6)
Jack Pinto, 05/06/06, male (age 6)
Noah Pozner, 11/20/06, male (age 6)
Caroline Previdi, 09/07/06, female (age 6)
Jessica Rekos, 05/10/06, female (age 6)
Avielle Richman, 10/17/06, female (age 6)
Lauren Russeau, 1982, female (age 29)
Mary Sherlach, 02/11/56, female (age 56)
Victoria Soto, 11/04/85, female (age 27)
Benjamin Wheeler, 9/12/06, male (age 6)
Allison N. Wyatt, 07/03/06, female (age 6)

Vicki Soto: The Teacher That Took Action
by Nina Strochlic Dec 15, 2012 7:45 PM EST


Vicki Soto died protecting her first-grade students at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Nina Strochlic on the sacrifices of a true hero.

When Victoria Soto heard gunfire ricocheting off the normally quiet hallways of Sandy Hook Elementary School, she didn’t run and hide. Instead, the 27-year-old teacher gathered her first-grade class into the closet and bravely placed herself between the young children and Adam Lanza, the heavily-armed shooter.

While it’s not yet clear how exactly the tragedy unfolded, whether or not the young teacher is a hero is not under dispute.

On Tumblr, a friend of Soto’s shared unconfirmed details that she had gone to extraordinary lengths to protect her class from the bullets. “I talked to Vicki Tuesday and she told me that she loved her 16 angels and never wanted to let them go,” he wrote on Friday. “Today when the shooting started Vicki hid her kids in closets and when the gunman came into her room she told them the class was in gym. She was then murdered. Words can not express how heartbreaking and tragic this is. I will miss you dearly.”

Soto’s cousin echoed the sentiment. “The family received information she was found shielding her students in a closet,” her cousin, Jim Wiltsie told the New York Daily News. “I’m very proud to report she was a hero. I would expect nothing less from Vicki … she did what she was trained to do, but also what her heart told her to do.”

The U.K.’s Independent picked up the story, splashing Soto on the cover with the line “The Heroine of Sandy Hook.”

Indeed.

Pictures show a dark-haired young woman with a bright, constant smile. Her cousin said it had been “her life’s dream” to be a teacher.

Soto lived with her parents, two sisters, and a brother in Stratford, Conn., braving a chilly long-distance commute to Newtown every morning. “I’m so sad I won’t hear her car cranking up every morning,” George Henderson, the family’s next-door neighbor told the Daily News. He remembers a girl who was “so sweet” that she even shoveled his walk one day when his back hurt. Her mom, Donna, has been a nurse at Bridgeport Hospital for 30 years; her dad, Carlos, is a crane operator for the state’s Department of Transportation. Her father’s coworkers say Vicki was Carlos’s pride and joy. “He always talked about her. He loved her like you wouldn’t believe. Every time he spoke to her on the phone, he was cheerful.”

On Friday and Saturday, Soto’s sisters took to Twitter to express their grief and pay tribute to Vicki’s sacrifice. “Hug your loved ones an tell them how much you love them because you never know when you’ll see them again. Do this in honor of Vicki,” one wrote. Another tweeted: “vicki died today protecting her students in the shooting”

Soto’s family is still trying to process the loss of their daughter, but friends say learning of her heroism is helping them cope with the tragic news. “Vicki was a great individual with a huge heart and put students first. Unfortunately, that is how she lost her life,” Wiltsie said. “I wanted people to know that she was a hero for what she did, and that she gets the recognition that she deserves.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ok-action.html

Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, Sandy Hook Elementary School principal, remembered as energetic, positive
Posted: 12/15/2012
Last Updated: 14 hours and 42 minutes ago
•By: Michael Martinez, CNN

Principal Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung just entered a Ph.D. program. She led a school district's strategic planning panel. She won a national school grant. She could be "a tough lady in the right sort of sense," a friend said.

Among it all, she found time to smile and exuded memorable enthusiasm.

The longtime educator's career seemed to be peaking when she became principal two years ago of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which has 525 pupils from kindergarten to fourth grade.

On Friday, Hochsprung, 47, was fatally shot inside her school in a massacre that killed five other adults and 20 students. The shooter killed himself; his mother was found dead in a Newtown house, said a law enforcement source with detailed knowledge of the investigation.

Hochsprung was an affable but serious leader, recalled Tom Prunty, a friend whose niece goes to Sandy Hook and was uninjured Friday. "She was really nice and very fun, but she was also very much a tough lady in the right sort of sense," Prunty said. "She was the kind of person you'd want to be educating your kids. And the kids loved her. "Even little kids know when someone cares about them, and that was her," he said.

Hochsprung majored in special education for her bachelor's and master's degrees in the 1990s, and she rose through the ranks, working in elementary, middle and high schools in Connecticut's small communities. The Connecticut Board of Education appointed Hochsprung as Sandy Hook's principal on June 9, 2010. She came to Newtown with 12 years of administrative experience, including as a principal in Regional School District 14 serving the Connecticut communities of Bethlehem and Danbury, the Newtown Bee reported.

At home in Woodbury, Connecticut, Hochsprung was busy raising two daughters and three stepdaughters.

She also dove into her work, quickly asserting her leadership and implementing a number of initiatives affecting the school's nearly 700 students from about 500 families.

One of them was overseeing the installation of a new security system requiring every visitor to ring the front entrance's doorbell after the doors locked at 9:30 a.m. If they were buzzed into the front office, parents would be asked for photo identification.

Hochsprung also volunteered to be co-chairman of a strategic planning commission for the school district, said Scott Clayton, former assistant principal at Newtown High School, who left this year to become a principal in another district.

The commission post is a weighty, important job, said Clayton, who worked with Hochsprung on the panel. "She was extremely passionate. And she was especially dedicated to and knowledgeable about curriculum," Clayton said. "This was a deep loss for the community."

Last summer, Hochsprung was one of 15 educators accepted into the doctorate program at Esteves School of Education at the Sage Colleges in New York, the college said.

She was the first person from Connecticut accepted into the 27-month program, said Dean Lori V. Quigley.

Hochsprung made the biggest impression of the group with her smile and enthusiasm, Quigley said.

"She was truly a caring administrator," Quigley said, adding Hochsprung was proud to represent her school.

In 2011, Hochsprung won a school grant called Sharing the Dream from the National Association of Elementary School Principals. The grant creates global awareness in schools and international learning communities.

She proudly posted notes and photos on her Twitter account about her school's activities.

"Setting up for the Sandy Hook nonfiction book preview for staff ... Common Core, here we come!" she wrote on Thursday, her most recent tweet. A photo depicted several children's books, including "Alligator or Crocodile? How Do You Know?"

Another photo shows a choir of boys and girls dressed in white shirts and black pants or skirts being led by the music teacher. The audience was all students.

"Sandy Hook students enjoy the rehearsal for our 4th grade winter concert - a talented group led by Maryrose Kristopik!" Hochsprung tweeted Wednesday. Kristopik is listed as music teacher on the school's website.

On her principal's page of the school website, Hochsprung emphasizes the school's "rich history of establishing high expectations and sustaining strong academic performance."

"Our Responsive Classroom approach focuses on the benefits of a climate of kindness and respect where all community members feel accepted, important, and secure," Hochsprung wrote.

In her two years at Sandy Hook, the principal came across as a "very well-liked, compassionate woman" who was "extremely helpful," said Aimee Seaver, a mother of a first grader.

Hochsprung brought positive energy, sincerity and a strong work ethic to the job -- qualities that will be sorely missed, added Seaver.

"I never saw her without a smile," Seaver said. "I believe she had the children's best intentions (in mind) all the time. She was always looking out for them."

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/nationa...#ixzz2FBdbLvkm

COLUMBINE STUDENT'S FATHER 12 YEARS LATER !!

Guess our national leaders didn't expect this. On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.

They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness.. The following is a portion of the transcript:

"Since the dawn of creation there has been both good & evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.

"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge.. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!

My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"

- Darrell Scott

Do what the media did not - - let the nation hear this man's speech. Please send this out to everyone you can.
God Bless
.

Did anyone see on yahoo where they were having a memorial at a catholic church with over 500 people there and someone called threatening to kill everyone and said their friend didn't finish the job and they evacuated the church and swat and police checked it out and at the same church people put posters and someone wrote on one of the posters this is round one. I can't believe someone thinks thats funny in a situation like this. I hope they catch who did it.