2012 Sandy Hook

On December 14, 2012

in Newtown, Connecticut at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, a 20-year-old former student named Adam Lanza killed twenty-six people and himself. He killed his mother at their shared home, stole four of her guns and her car, and drove to Sandy Hook Elementary, where he killed 20 children aged six and seven and six adults. Two other people were injured, and Lanza also killed himself as police arrived at the school to confront him.

Adam Lanza poses with multiple weapons

It began at an unknown time in the morning on December 14, 2012, when Lanza shot and killed his mother Nancy Lanza, aged 52, with a .22-caliber rifle at their Newtown home. She was still in pajamas, in her bed, with four gunshot wounds to her head when she was found. Lanza stole his mother’s car and several of her guns and drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Shortly after 9:35 a.m., dressed in all black with yellow earplugs, sunglasses, and an olive green utility vest (initial reports that he was wearing body armor were false), and armed with his mother's Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, Lanza shot through a glass window next to the doors at the front entrance the school. Some heard these initial shots on the school intercom system, which was broadcasting the morning announcements when the shooting started.

Sandy Hook school Principal Dawn Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach were in a meeting with others when they heard noises they did not recognize as gunshots. Hochsprung, Sherlach, and teacher Natalie Hammond, who said she thought it might have been the sound of pipes banging when the school furnace kicked on, entered the hallway to investigate when they immediately encountered Adam Lanza.