Special Report: Tragedy In Connecticut

Tragedy strikes an elementary school in Connecticut. A mass shooting leaves dozens dead. We'll get the latest.

The images out of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut today are utterly heart-rending.  Little children all in a row, each with hands on the shoulders of the next, fleeing their school in horror.  Sobbing.  And the news from inside the school, far worse.  27 dead.

Twenty young children.  Six adult victims.  And the gunman.  It is already one of the very worst shooting rampages in American history.  In a drumbeat of shooting rampages.  And there is much still unknown.

This hour, in a special edition of On Point:  the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary.
-Tom Ashbrook

Jeff Cohen, reporter for WNPR.

Jeevan Vittal, correspondent for FOX CT.

Julian Ford, a psychologist and professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut. He is a specialist in childhood and adult trauma.

John Rosenthal, founder of Stop Handgun Violence.

New York Times "Another student at the school told an NBC affiliate in Connecticut: “I was in the gym and I heard like seven loud booms, and the gym teachers told us to go in the corner and we huddled. We all heard these booming noises, and we started crying. So the gym teachers told us to go into the office where no one could find us. Then a police officer told us to run outside."

Hartford Courant "Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way, said the gunman apparently had two guns. A law enforcement official in Washington said the attacker was a 20-year-old man with ties to the school and that one of the guns was a .223-caliber rifle. Public records show that Ryan Lanza lived at 36 Yogananda St. at one point, and he is also listed as living at 1313 Grand St. in Hoboken, N.J. Police are searching that residence as well, sources say."

Mother Jones "Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders* carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. We've mapped them below, including details on the shooters' identities, the types of weapons they used, and the number of victims they injured and killed."

Editor's note: it is not clear what models of weapons were used in the attack in Connecticut. We will update the page when official information is available.