A shooting at a US school Friday left 27 people dead, including 18 children, an official said. It was one of the worst school shootings in the country’s history.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is under way. Another official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the gunman was killed and apparently had two guns.
The White House said President Barack Obama had been notified and that he had “enormous sympathy for families that are affected”.
It was the latest of several mass shootings in the US this year, and it approached the deadly scope of the Virginia Tech university massacre in 2007 that left 32 dead.
This time, the victims were young children. Photos from the scene showed students — some crying, others looking frightened — being escorted by adults through a parking lot in a line, hands on each other’s shoulders.
A law enforcement official in Washington said the attacker was a 20-year-old man with ties to the school and that one of the guns was a .223-calibre rifle. The official also said that the New Jersey state police was searching a location in that state in connection with the shootings.
The Friday morning killings happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, about 96 km northeast of New York City.
At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said the administration would “do everything we can to support state and local law enforcement.”