December 14 (RIA Novosti) - An armed person opened fire Friday inside an elementary school in Connecticut while students were in classes and unnamed sources quoted in local media reports said there were fatalities and injuries.
The shooting – the second armed rampage in a public place in the United States this week – occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the town of Newtown and at least some of the shooting happened in a classroom for kindergarten students, the local Hartford Courant newspaper said.
The first reports of the shooting came in around 9:40 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, shortly after the school day began. CNN quoted one witness as saying that at around 100 rounds were fired.
Local media quoting police said that one person believed to be the shooting suspect was dead. But in the panicked, chaotic moments that followed the first report of a shooting, it was not immediately clear if there was more than one shooter, how that person had died or whether there were other deaths.
Teachers and state police escorted frightened students away, some of them crying or holding hands with others, away from the school building. They were taken to a nearby fire station to be reunited with parents, but many terrified parents went directly to the school in search of their children.
Town resident Lisa Bailey, who has three children in Newtown schools, told CBS News: "Newtown is a quiet town. I'd never expect this to happen here. It's so scary. Your kids are not safe anywhere."
A spokesman at Danbury Hospital told NBC News they had three patients from the scene.
A police spokesman told WFSB-TV it is a “very serious school shooting,” and the station reported law enforcement officers from all over the state were responding to the site.
All schools in the district were put on lockdown.
