As the town of Newtown buried the first young victims of last week’s slaughter at an elementary school, the authorities increased security at schools in Connecticut on Monday, a scene that was repeated across the country.
Investigators said it could take months to recreate a full account of the events preceding and during the killing spree on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has been sealed off as a crime scene. The Connecticut State Police on Sunday officially confirmed the identity of the killer as Adam Lanza, 20, saying he shot himself with a handgun after taking the lives of 26 other people, 20 of them first-grade students, at the school, using an assault rifle. Before going on this rampage, Mr. Lanza killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, 52, in the house they shared not far from the school, law enforcement officials said.
In briefings on Monday, Lt. J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the Connecticut State Police, said that investigators needed to talk to many witnesses, including two adults who were wounded in the lower extremities during the shooting at the school, and to analyze every round of ammunition and every detail of the weapons. But the authorities have been reluctant to provide details about the types of evidence they have retrieved from the crime scenes. Asked about reports that the authorities were analyzing a computer hard drive taken from the home Mr. Lanza shared with his mother, Lieutenant Vance declined to comment, but he added that investigative specialists were available if needed to study such evidence.
Lieutenant Vance again emphasized that it would be a long process to deliver the answers that many longed to hear about the motive, but he said there was “no connection” between Mr. Lanza and the school, apparently countering earlier reports that Mr. Lanza had attended classes there.The authorities have said that Mr. Lanza arrived at the school with a far larger arsenal than he ultimately used. They said most of the shots were fired from a .223 Bushmaster semiautomatic carbine, a military-style assault weapon. Mr. Lanza was also carrying two semiautomatic pistols, a 10-millimeter Glock and a 9-millimeter Sig Sauer. A shotgun was found in the car. Given the extraordinary amount of firepower, Mr. Lanza was apparently prepared to kill many more people and may have been thwarted only when he heard the police arriving, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut said.
The guns were legally acquired and registered by Ms. Lanza, who had sometimes taken her son to shooting ranges, according to law enforcement officials and her friends. Mr. Lanza, who former classmates said had had a developmental disorder, lived with his mother.
Lieutenant Vance said on Sunday investigators recovered “numerous” empty 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster rifle. The .223-caliber bullet is a small, high-velocity round that has been used by Western military forces for decades, in part because it inflicts devastating wounds.
But for now, the plan was for normalcy to return as soon as possible to schools, although students at Sandy Hook will now go to school at another building in a nearby community.
Adding to the anxiety over the first day back to school on Monday, the authorities were investigating a report of a “suspicious person” at a school in Ridgefield, Conn., “who may in fact be armed,” Lieutenant Vance said. A temporary lockdown on the school was lifted.
He also said on Monday that the faculty and staff members at Sandy Hook had done everything they could do to protect the children, and that the arrival of the emergency responders saved many more lives. “It broke our hearts when we could not save them all,” he said.
That grim fact will be in full view on Monday and in the coming days, which are not likely to become any easier for the pained families. Relatives began to claim the bodies of the dead, and on Monday the first group of funerals — of two 6-year-old children — were held.
While the police have not yet released a detailed timeline of the shooting, officials said on Sunday that Mr. Lanza on Friday first shot his mother multiple times in her home, then drove to the school armed with four weapons and a large supply of ammunition.
Some of the bullets fired inside the school, according to a law enforcement official on Sunday, “penetrated the glass windows of the classrooms and went into vehicles in the parking lot.”
In addition to multiple high-capacity magazines for the rifle, Lieutenant Vance said the gunman had brought a number of magazines for both pistols.
Collectively, he said, there were hundreds of unfired bullets.
Mr. Malloy said on Sunday that Mr. Lanza had killed himself as police officers entered the school.
“We surmise that it was during the second classroom episode that he heard responders coming and apparently, at that, decided to take his own life,” Mr. Malloy said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Over the weekend, President Obama met in Newtown with families of the victims and first responders. Later, at an interfaith service, he gave a powerful address which, while it stopped short of an explicit call for new gun controls, seemed to hint strongly at fresh efforts. Mr. Obama spoke of the four shooting massacres during his presidency and promised to “use whatever power this office holds” to prevent another. Condolences flowed into Newtown from around the world. When he made his customary Sunday appearance at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his sorrow and said he was praying for the families of victims.
Officials did not make any public statements about Mr. Lanza’s motivation. Lieutenant Vance said on Monday that there had been no prior concerns or contacts about Mr. Lanza with law enforcement before the shooting.
A post-mortem examination of Mr. Lanza and his mother has been completed, according to a statement from Connecticut State Police on Sunday. A spokesman for the state medical examiner’s office said late Sunday that nobody had yet come forward to claim their bodies.
Security Increased at Connecticut Schools as Investigation Into Shooting Continues
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Security Increased at Connecticut Schools as Investigation Into Shooting Continues
