Fear of Being Committed May Have Caused Connecticut Gunman to Snap

By Bob Dillan

The gunman who slaughtered 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school may have snapped because his mother was planning to commit him to a psychiatric facility, according to a lifelong resident of the area who was familiar with the killer’s family and several of the victims’ families.

Adam Lanza, 20, targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown after killing his mother early Friday because he believed she loved the school “more than she loved him,” said Joshua Flashman, 25, who grew up not far from where the shooting took place. Flashman, a U.S. Marine, is the son of a pastor at an area church where many of the victims’ families worship.

“From what I’ve been told, Adam was aware of her petitioning the court for conservatorship and (her) plans to have him committed,” Flashman told FoxNews.com. “Adam was apparently very upset about this. He thought she just wanted to send him away. From what I understand, he was really, really angry. I think this could have been it, what set him off.”

A senior law enforcement official involved in the investigation confirmed that Lanza’s anger at his mother over plans for “his future mental health treatment” is being looked at as a possible motive for the deadly shooting.

 

“He thought she just wanted to send him away. From what I understand, he was really, really angry.”

– Joshua Flashman, Newtown resident familiar with Lanza family

 

Flashman was told Nancy Lanza had begun filing paperwork to get conservatorship over her troubled son, but that could not be confirmed because a court official told FoxNews.com such records are sealed. The move would have been necessary for her to gain the legal right to commit an adult to a hospital or psychiatric facility against his will. A competency hearing had not yet been held.

Adam Lanza attended the Sandy Hook School as a boy, according to Flashman, who said Nancy Lanza had volunteered there for several years. Two law enforcement sources said they believed Nancy Lanza had been volunteering with kindergartners at the school. Most of Lanza’s victims were first graders sources believe Nancy Lanza may have worked with last year.

Flashman said Nancy Lanza was also good friends with the school’s principal and psychologist—both of whom were killed in the shooting rampage.

“Adam Lanza believed she cared more for the children than she did for him, and the reason he probably thought this [was the fact that] she was petitioning for conservatorship and wanted to have him committed,” Flashman said. “I could understand how he might perceive that—that his mom loved him less than she loved the kids, loved the school. But she did love him. But he was a troubled kid and she probably just couldn’t take care of him by herself anymore.”

The Washington Post reported that the distraught mother had considered moving with her son to Washington state, where she had found a school she thought could help him. Either way, according to Flashman, Nancy Lanza was at her wit’s end.

A separate neighborhood source also told FoxNews.com that Nancy Lanza had come to the realization she could no longer handle her son alone. She was caring for him full-time, but told friends she needed help. She was planning to have him involuntarily hospitalized, according to the source, who did not know if she had taken formal steps.

Multiple sources told FoxNews.com Adam Lanza suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and unspecified mental and emotional problems.

Adam Lanza has also been described by those who knew him as highly intelligent, and a spokesman for Western Connecticut State University told The Associated Press he took college classes there when he was 16, earning a 3.26 grade point average and excelling at a computer course.

Alan Diaz, 20, who was friends with Adam Lanza at Newtown High School, said the Lanza he knew was ill-at-ease socially, but not a monster.

“He was a wicked smart kid,” Diaz told FoxNews.com by email. “When I first met him, he wouldn’t even look at you when you tried to talk to him. Over the year I knew him, he became used to me and my other friends, he eventually could have full conversations with us.

“I’ve heard him laugh, he has even comforted me once in a hard time I had,” Diaz said. “A big part of me wishes I never dropped contact with him after he left high school, felt like I could have done something.”

Flashman said nobody will completely understand why Adam did what he did.

“No one can explain Adam Lanza besides God and Adam Lanza, and I don’t even think Adam Lanza could explain Adam Lanza, to be honest with you.”

5 Steps That Will Curb Gun Violence (And 5 Ways They Will Fail)

By Spencer Ackerman

Suspected terrorists can’t fly on planes, but they can buy guns. The feds can track sales of fertilizer, but not semi-automatic rifles. Brick-and-mortar gun dealers perform background checks, but online ones often don’t. These are three of the many odd aspects of the gun trade that are now being reconsidered after the massacre of 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Here are five potential steps that gun owners, gun vendors, manufacturers, law enforcement and legislators might consider to stem mass-casualty gun violence — without shredding the Second Amendment, and without forcing gun owners to give back their weapons. No one measure will eradicate such attacks: Perfect security is an illusion, and one easily used to snatch away people’s liberties. None of the proposed fixes are foolproof. Each of them comes with the potential to seriously backfire. But after Sandy Hook, it’s time to a take a fresh look at the state of America’s firearms market.

Microstamping

Imagine every semi-automatic gun — those that automatically reload after every trigger pull — carried its own unique signature, transferable to every bullet at the point of firing. That’s what happens with an engraving technology called microstamping: Once engraved with a laser during manufacture, the gun’s firing pin imprints a tiny alphanumeric code onto the bullet’s shell casing and the primer used to fire.

Pro: Shell casings are more likely to be left at crime scenes than firearms or fingerprints are. “Stamp” the shell and you’ve added a layer of evidence about a perpetrator for police, one that’s theoretically more exact than ballistics testing. It’s primarily a method to mitigate gun violence after it occurs, but it’s possible microstamping could have some deterrent effect as well.

Con: It’s only a tool for semi-automatics, so it’s irrelevant if you’re reloading, say, your shotgun shells manually. You’d have to mandate microstamping at the point of manufacture for new guns, meaning it’ll be irrelevant for the estimated 310 million guns already in use in the country. It’s theoretically possible to file off the marking on the firearm pin, although practically speaking the engraving is invisible. Finally, the data on the shell casings can only identify the last legal owner of the gun.

Magazine Limitations

Jared Loughner never had to reload when he shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011. His Glock carried a 33-round extended magazine; Loughner fired 31 bullets. The U.S. has limited magazine size before: The expired 1994 Assault Weapons Ban banned magazines carrying more than 10 rounds. (.pdf)

Pro: Anytime a shooter has to stop to reload increases the chance that victims could escape; that law enforcement or others can stop an assailant; and, basically, fewer people will die. Robert Wright of The Atlantic goes a step further and proposes a ban on firearms carrying more than six rounds or a detachable magazine, meaning a shooter would have to reload bullet by bullet.

Con: There isn’t strong data correlating restrictions in magazine size with drops in gun crime. As theWashington Post’s Brad Plumer points out, the assault weapons ban exempted about 30 million high-capacity magazines, so studying the impact of the ban is surrounded in statistical noise. A shooter can always carry multiple loaded weapons.

Equalizing Online and Offline Gun Sales

If you want a gun to commit a crime, you should buy one over the internet. Federally licensed gun dealers need to conduct background checks on prospective buyers. But online, you can resell your guns in a burgeoning secondary market, on websites like ArmsList, without being a licensed dealer, and without background checks. While online vendors are supposed to ship their guns to a federally licensed dealer who’ll perform the background check, a 2011 New York City investigation found that’snot always the case in practice. (.pdf) The rules vary site to site, but many sites take the eBay or Craigslist approach of staying hands-off after visitors sign a term-of-service agreement. The 2007 Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, bought his guns online; so did the Aurora shooter.

Pro: You’ll shut down an easy path for people to acquire dangerous weapons without answering questions. The changes to online gun marketplaces, the New York City investigation suggested, are feasible without shutting down the resale markets themselves: either authorized gun dealers or law enforcement would perform the background checks, or the sellers would have to verify a buyer’s valid gun permit — something the investigation judged to be “relatively easy.”

Con: It’ll require a lot of enforcement. Imagine having a regulator reviewing every eBay auction. Since online gun stores are basically connector points between consumer and vendor, it’s easy to imagine illicit transactions moving to a different forum — i.e., if you reach me over ArmsList and offer me big money for one of my guns fast, maybe I’d rather do business with you in a less conspicuous forum, like a vacant lot.

Put Gun Registries in Terrorism Databases

If you’re a suspected terrorist, you’ll set off all kinds of alarm bells if you try to buy the precursor materials for a bomb. But if you going on a firearms shopping spree, you’re in the clear, since the government can’t legally maintain a database of gun owners. In other words, “there is no basis to automatically prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives because they appear on the terrorist watchlist,” a 2011 Government Accountability Office report found. (.pdf) Read that again: suspected terrorists can buy all the guns they want. Perhaps that shouldn’t be so.

Pro: The last people who should have guns are suspected terrorists, right? At the very least, law enforcement needs tools to be able to track the prospective weapons purchases of people they’re monitoring out of fear they’ll commit an act of terrorism, especially since it’s so easy to buy guns.

Con: The U.S. government often mislabels ordinary citizens as terrorists-in-training — which makes terror watchlists awfully problematic. They contain the names of people who’ve never committed and won’t commit any crime, sometimes because of incorrect transliterations of their names, as a Department of Homeland Security study found. (.pdf) An 8-year-old boy was once on the government’s “selectee” list for extra screening at airports. And once you’ve been placed on a watchlist like the “no-fly” list, there’s no obvious mechanism for getting off it: The government doesn’t have to tell you you’re on it.

Cash for Guns

This one isn’t a technological solution at all; it’s an economic one. Police departments across the country offer cash for guns. Australia has experience with it at the national level: After a mass shooting in 1996, it bought back nearly a fifth of all shotguns, handguns and rifles in private use, some 600,000 of them.

Pro: There hasn’t been a mass casualty incident in Australia since 1996. An Australian study that theWashington Post’s Dylan Matthews found estimates that the law led to a 59 percent decline in the firearm homicide rate and a 79 percent decline in the firearm suicide rate.

Con: It’ll be expensive. A recent congressional study found that the U.S. has over 300 millionhandguns, rifles and shotguns, which is about one weapon per American. That shows a robust demand for firearms in the United States that may either render buyback programs marginal or risk stressing state and federal budgets.

Again, none of this is to say that any of these measures, individually or in concert, would necessarily prevent another Sandy Hook. There will always be psychopaths who figure out ways to kill people. But it is to say that there are gun-control options that either make it harder to pull off a mass-casualty shooting or can mitigate its effects, short of the unrealistic demand that Americans surrender their hundreds of millions of guns. If we’re willing to discuss them, that is.

Sixth-grader in Utah brings gun to school to avoid Connecticut-style attack, district spokesman says

By Samantha R. Selman

 

A sixth-grade student in Utah is in police custody after he was accused of bringing a gun to school Monday, reportedly claiming he wanted to protect himself in the event of a school shooting.

The 11-year-old is a student at West Kearns Elementary School, in Kearns, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, and brought the .22-caliber handgun to school in his backpack, Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley said told NBC News. 

The boy, whose name has not been released because he is a juvenile, indicated that he wanted to defend himself if there was an incident similar to what happened in Newtown, Conn. Last Friday, 20 students, ages 6 and 7, and six school staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School were killed when a gunman burst into the school and opened fire before fatally shooting himself. The gunman had killed his mother earlier that day.

“Obviously that’s not the correct approach,” Horlsey said of the 11-year-old’s action. “We teach these kids on a regular basis that they have a responsibility to keep their school safe.”   

Some witnesses have said they saw the boy brandish the gun on the playground and point it at another child’s head. Other reports said the boy verbally threatened another student with the gun. Police have not yet been able to confirm these accounts, Horsley said, noting that it’s sometimes difficult to sort out the facts when all the witnesses are children. 

Horsley said two of the boy’s classmates complained to a teacher at about 3 p.m. MST, about 45 minutes before the end of the school day. The teacher immediately secured the boy and took him to the principal’s office. It was the principal who retrieved the boy’s backpack from his classroom and contacted Granite School District police. Police were able to find the weapon and secured the situation in three to five minutes, Horsley said.

The boy also had ammunition, although the gun was not loaded and it was not immediately clear whether the bullets were the appropriate ammunition for the gun, Horsley said. 

The student was charged with one count of possession of a dangerous weapon on school property and three charges of aggravated assault, which is a third-degree felony, involving the alleged waving of the weapon at other students in a threatening manner. 

Horsley said the student obtained the gun at home from an extended family member who moved out of the family’s house last week.

Previous reports indicated that the student claimed his parents told him to bring the gun to school for protection. Horsley said those claims are not accurate and said the parents have been “very cooperative.”

Horsley said the student is likely to face severe criminal penalties, adding that he was suspended from the school and will not be let back into the traditional school setting ever. “We have a variety of alternative placements for kids who violate school safety policies,” Horsley said. 

No one was injured in the incident, and the school was not placed on lockdown, school administrators said, because the situation was resolved immediately, and, more importantly, they feared startling students. 

Discovery Cancels “American Guns” After Sandy Hook Massacre

By Samantha R. Selman

Just days after the terrible tragedy of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, the country, and even the world at large, faces an undeniable need to re-examine the role of gun control on the world stage. As with numerous tragedies in the past, much of the focus shifts to violence in media as depicted across film and television, which today faces one of its first casualties. Discovery has opted to pull the plug on its pro-firearm reality series ‘American Guns.’ But what will the reaction to the news bring?

We are now in a stage of extraordinary self-examination, more crucial than ever in the wake of the recent tragedy in Newtown that ended 27 lives. Not only will debates rage across the nation, but sensibilities alter and re-shape the manner in which violence is presented for years to come. In particular, we’ve learned that Discovery has taken a step toward addressing public outcry directed at the network, cancelling its highly-rated series ‘American Guns.’

The series  followed a family of gun-makers in Colorado, and even experienced a 50 percent ratings increase for its second season premiere, but its plans for a third season were scrapped by the network. Reps for Discovery wouldn’t definitively link the cancellation to the Connecticut killings, though public outcry on the show’s Facebook and Twitter feeds has multiplied exponentially over the last few days.

Among some of the complaints compiled by Fox News, some wrote “I know you all have to make money but would Discovery Channel please consider ceasing to broadcast the show in the U.K.? Sadly your program makes buying/owning guns seem fun, glamorous, even normal.” Another reads, “With Discovery shows like ‘Sons of Guns’, ‘American Guns’, ‘Ted Nugent’s Gun Country’ etc it’s not surprising how guns are seen as acceptable.”

The debate, and grief associated with the recent tragedy won’t abate for some time, but what do you say?  Is Discovery’s cancellation of ‘American Guns’ a first step toward greater awareness or overreacting to current events?

Adam Lanza’s family: Mom liked parlor games, collected guns

The mother of the man identified by authorities as the gunman behind an elementary school massacre liked to play parlor games in a ladylike setting with neighbors, discussing their landscaping and backyard gardens in this charming exurb some 60 miles from New York City.
Nancy Lanza was a personable neighbor who lived on a block of spacious houses on a crest overlooking gentle hills, acquaintances said.

She and her family moved to the Sandy Hook neighborhood about 1998, raising two sons with husband Peter until the couple separated a few years ago.
“It was just a nice, normal family,” neighbor Rhonda Cullen said Saturday, recalling a recurring neighborhood ladies night over the Bunco dice game.

At odds with this image of New England gentility was how the Lanza household possessed of a cache of weapons — including an assault-style rifle and two handguns — in a community prized for its stillness.
Those weapons were found with Nancy Lanza’s younger son, Adam, 20 — whom three law enforcement officials said was the gunman in Friday’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
After gunfire at the school killed 20 children and six adults — the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history — the shooter killed himself, officials said.

Before Friday’s rampage, authorities said, Adam Lanza killed his mother in her home in Newtown’s Sandy Hook community, after which the school takes its name. Adam was living with his mother, two law enforcement sources said. The other son, Ryan, was living in New Jersey.
Said Cullen, struggling to make sense of the weaponry and the carnage: “Something doesn’t add up.”
Marsha Lanza, an aunt to Adam Lanza, described him as a “quiet, nice kid,” but he had issues with learning. Her husband is brother to Adam Lanza’s father.

“He was definitely the challenge of the family in that house. Every family has one,” she told CNN affiliate WLS. “They have one. I have one. But never in trouble with the law, never in trouble with anything.”

She said Adam Lanza’s mother “battled” with the school board and ended up having her son home schooled.
“She had issues with school,” said Marsha Lanza, who lives in Crystal Lake, Illinois. “I’m not 100% certain if it was behavior or learning disabilities, but he was a very, very bright boy. He was smart.”
Nancy Lanza was a giving, quiet, reserved person who grew up on a farm in New Hampshire with three siblings in a self-reliant family, Marsha Lanza said. The Lanza family is from Kingston, New Hampshire, she said.

“She didn’t have to work because my brother-in-law left her very well off, very well off. She was always there for her kids,” Marsha Lanza added.
The gunman’s mother owned guns for self-defense, the aunt said.
“She never felt threatened, or she would have said something,” Marsha Lanza said.
The aunt also couldn’t understand the mass shooting.
“Why these kids, why these innocent little kids? That just still baffles me,” she said. “I can’t understand why.”

She doesn’t believe gun laws should be changed. “It’s the person who does the killing, not the gun,” she said. “I thank God every day that my kids have faith and know right from wrong — and I’m not saying her kids didn’t — but you have got to give your kids roots.”
Adam Lanza’s brother Ryan works as a certified public account in New York, the aunt said. “I couldn’t imagine Ryan doing such a thing. He is too well-educated,” she said. “He has it together.”
Dan Holmes, who owns a local landscaping business, said Nancy Lanza was a gun collector, and the she showed off a rifle she had recently purchased.

“She told me she’d go target shooting with her boys pretty often,” Holmes said.
The three weapons found at the scene of the shooting were legally purchased by his mother, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told CNN.
Neighbor Gina McDade said Nancy Lanza was a “stay-at-home mom” and not a teacher or part-time employee of Sandy Hook Elementary, as some media reports stated.

Nancy Lanza had earlier worked in finance in Boston and Connecticut, said a friend who knew her well but who didn’t want her name published. Nancy Lanza had retired or was on a break from her career, but she was not a teacher, the friend said.

The friend said Nancy was devoted to her sons and had been “caring for Adam,” but would not provide further details.
A residential booklet in the Bennetts Farm Area states that Adam Lanza’s hobbies are soccer, skateboarding and video games and that Ryan Lanza’s are baseball, rollerblading, bicycling and video games, too.

Nancy Lanza’s relatives say they share the nation’s grief and struggle “to comprehend the tremendous loss that we all share,” according to a statement from James Champion, who’s a police officer and brother to Nancy Lanza.

“On behalf of Nancy’s mother and siblings, we reach out to the community of Newtown and express our heartfelt sorrow for the loss of innocence that has affected so many,” the family statement said, which was read by Rockingham County, New Hampshire, Sheriff Michael Downing.
The county includes the town of Kingston, where Adam Lanza’s father was raised.
Four years ago, the Lanzas’ marriage was ending.
Nancy Jean Lanza sued Peter John Lanza for divorce on November 24, 2008 — three days before Thanksgiving, Connecticut court records show.
The husband was known in the family as “P.J.,” Marsha Lanza said.
Nancy Lanza checked off “yes” for financial disputes but “no” for parenting disputes, records show.
They were divorced in September 2009 after an uncontested hearing, records show.
Peter Lanza is tax director and vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial Services in the New York City area, according to his resume posted on the website LinkedIn. He has been an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University in Boston since 1995 and also teaches a partnership tax class in the master’s in taxation program at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, his LinkedIn page states.
On LinkedIn, he wrote summaries about himself, including: “Career dedicated to developing and refining partnership tax planning and transactional skills” and “Work closely with many of the preeminent partnership tax advisors in the United States on a daily basis.”
Hours after the shooting Friday, a reporter with the Stamford Advocate found Peter Lanza as he pulled his blue Mini Cooper into his driveway in Stamford, Connecticut.
Peter Lanza was apparently unaware that his son was behind the school massacre and his ex-wife had been killed, the newspaper reported.
Peter Lanza told the reporter, “Is there something I can do for you?” and then declined to comment upon being told of his family’s involvement in the shooting, the newspaper reported.
The newspaper quoted an unidentified neighbor as saying Peter Lanza and his new wife, who has been living in the neighborhood for at least a decade, were married fairly recently.
Peter Lanza was taken in for questioning, but there was no indication he would face any charges, one U.S. law enforcement official told CNN.
Ryan Lanza was taken into custody for general questioning Friday from a home in Hoboken, New Jersey, according to three law enforcement officials. They did not label him a suspect.
The more complicated story of Adam Lanza was still being assembled by authorities and media in the aftermath of the massacre.
Authorities on Saturday were examining the sequence of events that led Adam Lanza to dress in what a law enforcement source said was “black battle fatigues and a military vest,” enter Sandy Hook Elementary and begin firing.
He shot to death 20 children — ages 6 and 7 — and six adults, then killed himself.
Adam Lanza was found dead in a classroom, and police recovered three weapons from the scene: a semi-automatic .223 Bushmaster, a Glock and a Sig Sauer, a source with knowledge of the investigation said.
Adam Lanza had no known criminal record, a law enforcement official said.
A member of Lanza’s family told investigators that he had a form of autism, according to a law enforcement official who spoke under condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the investigation.
Acquaintances struggled with fathoming the deadly actions being attributed to someone they had known.
Alex Israel was in the same class at Newtown High School with Adam Lanza, who lived a few houses down from her.
“You could definitely tell he was a genius,” Israel told CNN, adding she hadn’t talked with him since middle school. “He was really quiet, he kept to himself.”
His former bus driver, Marsha Moskowitz, told CNN affiliate WABC that he was “a nice kid, very polite” like his brother.
“It’s a shock to even know (the family),” she said. “You can’t understand what happened.”
A former classmate told CNN affiliate WCBS that Adam Lanza “was just a kid” — not a troublemaker, not antisocial, not suggesting in any way that he could erupt like this.
“I don’t know who would do anything like this,” the classmate said, before walking away distraught. “This is unspeakable.”

Teacher: Adam Lanza Was A “Loner” Who Felt Little Pain

By Samantha R. Selman

A day after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, details continue to emerge about the victims, the gunman, and the events leading up to the massacre.

On Saturday afternoon, the Connecticut State Police released a list of the names of the 6 adults and 20 young children shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School by 20-year-old Adam Lanza on Friday.

Prior to the shooting at Sandy Hook, Lanza had killed his mother, Nancy Lanza. He would later take his own life, bringing the final death toll to 28.

Friends, family and acquaintances of Adam Lanza have begun to speak about the person they knew, speculating whether anything in his past could have foreshadowed such a terrible event.

Newtown High School Head of Security Richard Novia told the Associated Press that when Adam Lanza was a student, he was not only emotionally withdrawn, but also appeared not to experience physical pain in the same way as others.

From the AP:

SOUTHBURY, Conn. — At Newtown High School, Adam Lanza had trouble relating to fellow students and teachers, but that was only part of his problem. He seemed not to feel physical or emotional pain in the same way as classmates.
Richard Novia, the school district’s head of security until 2008, who also served as adviser for the school technology club, said Lanza clearly “had some disabilities.”

“If that boy would’ve burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically,” Novia told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “It was my job to pay close attention to that.”

Novia was responsible for monitoring students as they used soldering tools and other potentially dangerous electrical equipment.

He recalled meeting with school guidance counselors, administrators and with the boy’s mother, Nancy Lanza, to understand his problems and find ways to ensure his safety. But there were others crises only a mother could solve.

“He would have an episode, and she’d have to return or come to the high school and deal with it,” Novia said, describing how the young man would sometimes withdraw completely “from whatever he was supposed to be doing,” whether it was sitting in class or reading a book.

Adam Lanza “could take flight, which I think was the big issue, and it wasn’t a rebellious or defiant thing,” Novia said. “It was withdrawal.”

Authorities on Saturday continued a wide-ranging investigating into the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, trying to understand what led the young man to kill his mother in their home and then slaughter 26 children and adults at a Connecticut elementary school before taking his own life.

Back in their teenage years, Adam and his older brother, Ryan, were both members of the tech club, which offered students a chance to work on computers, videotape school events and produce public-access broadcasts.

It was popular among socially awkward students. But Adam, while clearly smart, had problems that went beyond an adolescent lack of social skills, Novia said.

“You had yourself a very scared young boy, who was very nervous around people he could trust or he refused to speak with,” Novia said.

The club provided a setting for students to build lasting friendships. But while other members were acquainted with Adam, none was close to him.

“Have you found his best friend? Have you found a friend?” Novia asked. “You’re not going to. He was a loner.”

Adam was not physically bullied, although he may have been teased, Novia said.

The club gave the boy a place where he could be more at ease and indulge his interest in computers. His anxieties appeared to ease somewhat, but they never disappeared. When people approached him in the hallways, he would press himself against the wall or walk in a different direction, clutching tight to his black case.

“The behavior would be more like an 8-year-old who refuses to give up his teddy bear,” Novia said. “What you knew with Adam is it was a possession. It was not a possession to be put at risk.”

Even so, Novia said, his primary concern was that Adam might become a target for abuse by his fellow students, not that he might become a threat.

“Somewhere along in the last four years, there were significant changes that led to what has happened,” Novia said. “I could never have foreseen him doing that.”

Jim McDade, who lives a few houses from where Nancy Lanza was slain, said his family became acquainted with the two brothers and their mother because their children were about the same ages and rode the school bus together.

“There was certainly no indication of anything unusual that lets you think that a kid’s going to do something like that,” said McDade, who works in finance in New York. “There was nothing that would indicate anything going on behind the scenes that would lead to this horrible mess.”

He recalled Adam Lanza as “a very bright kid.”

Olivia DeVivo, a student at the University of Connecticut, was in Adam Lanza’s 10th grade English class.

“He was very different and very shy and didn’t make an effort to interact with anybody,” she said.

DeVivo said Lanza always carried a briefcase and wore his shirts buttoned up to the top button. She said he seemed bright but never really participated in class.

“Now looking back, it’s kind of like `OK, he had all these signs,’ but you can’t say every shy person would do something like this.”

On Saturday, a police car was parked in the driveway of the Stamford, Conn., home of Lanza’s father, Peter Lanza. An officer stopped reporters who tried to approach the house.

Connecticut shooting: 20 schoolchildren among the 28 dead

By Jane Zuckerberg

The toll in the Connecticut shooting stands at 28 dead, including 20 children and the gunman, Connecticut State Police said Friday.
Speaking at a televised news conference from Newtown, Conn., State Police spokesman Paul Vance confirmed the death toll, making this the deadliest shooting since the Virginia Tech rampage in 2007.
According to Vance, the gunman entered the school and fired at students and staff in one section – two rooms – at the school, he said.

Eighteen children were pronounced dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Two pupils were taken to hospitals and pronounced dead there.
Six adults were dead at the scene as was the gunman. Another person was found dead at what Vance described as “a secondary crime scene” in Connecticut, bringing the total to 28.
One person was injured.
None of the victims were identified pending identification, Vance said.
“It’s still an evolving crime scene and it’s just hours old,” Daniel Curtin, a FBI special agent in Connecticut, said. “And it’s obviously very tragic. All we’re saying is that the FBI and our agents have a presence there to assist in any way possible. Because right now it’s a Connecticut state and local investigation at this point. But in times of trial like this we work together.” A weapon was recovered at the scene.
According to sources, the event began with an argument with the principal. Some of the staffers were shot first, then the gunman advanced on a classroom, shooting.

The incident began at about 9:40 a.m. EST at the school inNewtown, a town of about 27,000 people.Stephen Delgiadicetold reporters that his  8-year-old daughter heard two big bangs and teachers told her to get in a corner. His daughter was fine.

“It’s alarming, especially in Newtown, Conn., which we always thought was the safest place in America,” he said.