Sandy Hook Elementary School rampage

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The rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place on the morning of December 14, 2012 in the US state of Connecticut in the small town of Newtown , around 100 kilometers northeast of New York City . A total of 28 people died in the rampage , including 20 children, six employees of the elementary school and the mother of the perpetrator. The perpetrator, 20-year-old Adam Lanza from Newtown, subsequently shot himself. Sandy Hook is a district of Newtown.

In terms of the death toll, it was the third worst school rampage in United States history after the Bath School Massacre in 1927 and the Virginia Tech rampage in 2007 .

Course of action

Map section of Newtown , CT
(red marking: location of the school, black marking: home of the perpetrator and his mother)

According to the course of events reconstructed by the investigative authorities , Adam Lanza first killed his mother on the morning of December 14, 2012 in the shared house in Newtown with four shots in the head. He then drove his mother's car to the Sandy Hook Elementary School eight kilometers away . He led four firearms from the legal possession of his mother with him: one semi-automatic rifle of the brand Bushmaster ACR , a pistol Glock 20 , a gun SIG Sauer P226 and a semi-automatic shotgun Saiga-12 .

Lanza got into the school by shooting through one of the front doors. At school he shot twelve girls and eight boys aged six and seven and six women. All victims had multiple gunshot wounds, a six-year-old had 11 gunshot wounds.

One of his first victims on the school grounds was the high jump principal Dawn Lafferty. It had only introduced new security measures in autumn 2012; so were u. a. the school doors locked from 9:30 a.m. Two adults were wounded in the rampage, including the deputy director.

According to eyewitness reports (in addition to high jump), five people who were shot shortly afterwards stood protectively in front of children (see box on the right for names).

Victim

Names of those killed

Adults

  • Rachel D'Avino , 29, assistant teacher
  • Dawn high jump , 47, principal
  • Anne Marie Murphy , 52, assistant teacher
  • Lauren Rousseau , 30, teacher
  • Mary Sherlach , 56, a school psychologist
  • Victoria Leigh Soto , 27, teacher

student

  • Charlotte Bacon , 6
  • Daniel Barden , 7
  • Olivia Engel , 6
  • Josephine Gay , 7
  • Dylan Hockley , 6
  • Madeleine Hsu , 6
  • Catherine Hubbard , 6th
  • Chase Kowalski , 7
  • Jesse Lewis , 6
  • Ana Marquez-Greene , 6
  • James Mattioli , 6
  • Grace McDonnell , 7
  • Emilie Parker , 6
  • Jack Pinto , 6
  • Noah Pozner , 6
  • Caroline Previdi , 6
  • Jessica Rekos , 6
  • Avielle Richman , 6th
  • Benjamin Wheeler , 6
  • Allison Wyatt , Jan.

Mother of the perpetrator

  • Nancy Lanza , 52

Perpetrator

  • Adam Lanza , 20

The perpetrator shot a total of 27 people, including 6 school employees aged 27 to 56, twenty first graders (twelve girls, eight boys) and his mother (52).

Perpetrator

Adam Lanza (born April 22, 1992, † December 14, 2012) grew up in Newtown. For a short time Lanza was a student at the school. At the time of the crime, he lived with his mother, Nancy Lanza, about five miles from the school and had an unencumbered certificate of good conduct.

There is no evidence of the perpetrator's motive. Before the act, he damaged a hard drive on his computer.

The official final report of the investigating public prosecutor's office published on November 25, 2013 also gives no motive for the perpetrator or an explanation for why the Sandy Hook Elementary School was the target of his actions. Data stored by the navigation device in Lanza's vehicle show that after his mother was murdered, until the rampage began, he apparently drove to several schools in Newtown at random. Adam Lanza was certified as having "serious psychological problems". In the months before the crime, he practically withdrew completely from his surroundings and from his fellow human beings, including his mother, with whom he only communicated by e-mail, although he lived in the same house. Lanza is described on the basis of the investigation as a gun fanatic with a fascination for mass murders such as the rampage at Columbine High School . He was a member of the school shooter fandom .

Reactions

President Obama's address on the day of the rampage

In a brief address televised on December 14, 2012, President Obama said, "We have seen too many of these tragedies in the past few years," and implied consequences: "We must come together and act meaningfully about tragedies like this one to prevent - regardless of party politics ”. He ordered the flag of the United States to be raised at half-mast on all public buildings and American military bases, both domestically and internationally .

American television stations changed their planned program and stopped broadcasting new episodes of the series Family Guy , American Dad and Haven . The film premieres of the films Django Unchained and Jack Reacher have therefore also been postponed. The Herold newspaper placed an ad for a gun shop in a report on the rampage, which sparked controversy.

One day after the fact, Adam Lanza's father said:

“Our hearts go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones and to all those who were injured. Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy. No words can truly express how heartbroken we are. We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can. We too are asking why. We have cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to do so. Like so many of you, we are saddened, but struggling to make sense of what has transpired. "

“We wholeheartedly go to the families and friends who have lost loved ones and to everyone who has been wounded. Our family mourns together with all those who are affected by this terrible tragedy. How shaken we are cannot be put into words. We cannot believe this ourselves and try as best we can to find answers. For us, too, the question of why remains. We are working closely with the authorities and will continue to do so. We are depressed, like so many of you, but it is difficult to understand what happened alone. "

Chancellor Angela Merkel also expressed her sympathy in a press release and said that this act made her deeply sad.

The National Rifle Association called on December 21 to have armed police or security guards protect every school. Even Republican proponents of gun ownership were appalled at the proposal. Scott Brown , then in the US Senate for Massachusetts, was the first Republican politician to come out in favor of a nationwide ban on assault rifles , but later moved away from this point of view.

The FBI arrested 37-year-old Nouel Alba from the New York Bronx on December 27, 2012 after she tried to sneak money through crowdfunding . Alba posed as a relative of one of the victims and asked for financial support because of the loss.

On January 2, 2013, the surviving children and teachers moved into Chalk Hill Middle School in the small town of Monroe , Connecticut , about 15 kilometers away , where they will be taught until further notice. The school closed in 2010 and has been empty since then. The transition quarters have been freshly painted and the organizers have moved the children's lockers and personal items from Sandy Hook School.

The online magazine Slate and other private initiatives have counted and published the number of people killed by firearms in the US since the Newtown rampage. On January 3, 2013, 409 people were shot dead. The latest figures officially published by the responsible Centers for Disease Control are (as of early January 2013) those for 2010; therefore this count closes a gap.

On February 15, 2013, the female teachers who were shot by US President Obama were awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal . The bereaved received this second highest civilian award in a ceremony in the White House.

Commemoration

Laying flowers in front of Sandy Hook Elementary School

On the evening of December 16, 2012, the central memorial service with President Obama took place in the St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Newtown. At the funeral, clergymen from different religions had their say. There had been several bomb threats about six hours before the memorial service, after which the church and an adjacent building were evacuated and then searched.

Effects

In mid-January 2013, significantly stricter laws came into force in the US state of New York. Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a new package of laws banning privately owned assault rifles and magazines with more than seven rounds. On January 16, 2013, President Obama presented proposals to tighten gun law. Among other things, he proposed a ban on privately owned semi-automatic rifles and a review of all gun buyers. The proposals did not find a majority in the US Congress .

A stricter gun law has also been passed in the US state of Colorado .

A Colombian fashion designer later offered bullet-resistant products for children in the United States.

In early April 2013, the Connecticut Senate passed a tougher gun law by 26-10. Among other things, it bans 100 makes of assault rifle, limits the maximum number of cartridges per magazine to ten and raises the minimum age for gun buyers from 18 to 21 years. A state register is also to be introduced which lists people with a criminal record for gun offenses. On April 4, 2013, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy signed the law.

The school building was demolished within a year of the events.

In January 2016, one year before the end of his term in office, President Obama tearfully referred to the events in Newtown in a haunting speech on the occasion of his current efforts to reform American gun law.

In March 2019, Jeremy Richman, the father of Avielle Richman, died of suicide .

See also

Web links

Commons : Sandy Hook Elementary School rampage  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
 Wikinews: Connecticut: rampage at a primary school causes horror  - news

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Killer's Mother Was Shot 4 Times, Official Says. . On: NYTimes.com December 18, 2012. English; Retrieved December 19, 2012.
  2. ^ After the rampage: US financial investor gets out of weapons manufacturer , report on Spiegel.de from December 18, 2012, accessed on August 16, 2015
  3. ↑ Tracy Connor: Conn. school massacre victims all shot multiple times, chief medical officer says . On: NBCNews.com , December 15, 2012.
  4. ^ M. Alex Johnson and Becky Bratu: Police: Second person injured in Connecticut school shooting survived . On: NBCNews.com , December 17, 2012.
  5. ↑ Wlada Kolosowa and Raniah Salloum: shot dead teacher: the heroine Sandy Hook School . On: Spiegel Online , December 16, 2012.
  6. ^ Gary Stoller and Oren Dorell: Classmate says Adam Lanza attended Sandy Hook school . On: USAToday.com , December 19, 2012.
  7. ^ Miguel Llanos: Authorities ID gunman who killed 27 in elementary school massacre (English) . In: NBC News , December 14, 2012. Retrieved December 15, 2012. 
  8. ↑ Report: Lanza smashed computer hard drive . In: USA Today , December 17, 2012. Retrieved December 18, 2012. 
  9. ↑ Investigators on the Newtown rampage - 44 pages that leave one question unanswered , on sueddeutsche.de on November 26, 2013.
  10. ^ Sandy Hook Final Report , of the Office of the State's Attorney, Judicial District of Danbury (PDF; 608 kB), accessed on October 3, 2015
  11. ↑ Jenni Raitanen, Atte Oksanen: Global Online Subculture surrounding School Shootings. In: American Behavioral Scientist. Volume 62, No. 2. SAGE, New York, NY 2018, pp. 195-209, here: p. 203.
  12. ^ Presidential Proclamation - Honoring the Victims of the Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut (Dec. 14, 2012)
  13. ↑ a b Tasteless advertisement in article on school massacre (accessed December 17, 2012)
  14. ↑ Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained premiere called off after Sandy Hook massacre , The Independent on December 18, 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  15. ↑ Aly Weisman: Jack Reacher's Premiere Postponed & TV Shows Canceled After Newtown Shooting , Business Insider, December 17, 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  16. ↑ Peter Lanza Statement: Father Of Adam Lanza Says, 'We Too Are Asking Why' ( Memento December 16, 2012 on the Internet Archive ), on Huffingtonpost.com, accessed August 17, 2015
  17. ^ Official press release by Angela Merkel , Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, December 15, 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  18. ↑ US gun lobby wants to protect schools with armed guards , on Spiegel.de from December 21, 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  19. ↑ Marc Pitzke : The Violence Debate in the USA: The Gun Lobby Reloads , on Spiegel.de, December 21, 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  20. ^ Kristen A. Lee: Scott Brown is first GOP senator to back a new federal assault weapons ban , on nydailynews.com, December 20, 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  21. ↑ Nouel Alba poses as Sandy Hook victim's aunt, police say , on wjla.com of December 27, 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  22. ↑ New York woman accused in alleged Newtown charity scam New York woman accused in alleged Newtown charity scam , CNN.com of 28 December 2012; accessed on August 17, 2015
  23. ↑ Priyanka Boghani: Sandy Hook Elementary students welcomed by Chalk Hill School globalpost.com, January 2, 2013; accessed on August 17, 2015
  24. ↑ Christina Ng: Sandy Hook Classrooms Recreated Down to Crayons on the Desk in New Building ABC News, January 1, 2013; accessed on August 17, 2015
  25. ↑ How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown? slate.com
  26. ↑ Stefan Schulz: Terrifying Statistics: How Many Americans Die from Firearms? , on FAZ.net January 3, 2013; accessed on August 17, 2015
  27. ↑ Felicia Sonmez: Obama recognizes Newtown victims with Presidential Citizens Medal , in The Washington Post, February 15, 2013; accessed on August 17, 2015
  28. ^ President Obama Presents the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal , whitehouse.gov, February 15, 2013; accessed on August 17, 2015
  29. ↑ Newtown, Connecticut Church Bomb Threat: St. Rose Of Lima Evacuated , December 16, 2012.
  30. ↑ How Obama wants to curb the gun mania , spiegel.de
  31. ↑ Four months after the school massacre: Connecticut rushes to gun law at stern.de, April 4, 2013, accessed on April 4, 2013
  32. ↑ Klaus Ehringfeld: Children's clothes: Bulletproof into the classroom , Spiegel Online, 29 January 2013
  33. ↑ Connecticut governor signs strict gun law after Newtown shooting , Reuters, April 4, 2013 (accessed August 16, 2013)
  34. ↑ http://de.euronews.com/2013/10/26/massakerschule-sandy-hook-wird-abgerissen
  35. ↑ Barack Obama: US gun control inaction must end , BBC , January 5, 2016; accessed on January 6, 2016
  36. ↑ CNN, March 25, 2019

Coordinates: 41 ° 25 ′  N , 73 ° 17 ′  W