NEWTOWN, Conn. — Just before 10 a.m. Friday, Robert Licata's wife called in a panic. The Newtown school district had sent an alert to parents.
All the schools had been locked down, it said. There were reports of gunfire.
Licata's wife, who'd been on her way to the gym, swung by a high school. Nothing. Then she drove to Sandy Hook Elementary, where their 6-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter went to school.
That's when she knew. She couldn't even get close — too many police cruisers, too many ambulances. So her husband, heart pounding, drove to a firehouse near the school where parents had huddled. Police and teachers were walking children there, some in single file, their tiny hands gripping one another's shoulders.
Within minutes, Licata saw his daughter. The second-grader ran to him, crying. You're OK, he told her. You're safe.
Over the next hour, Licata, 52, watched class after class pour into the firehouse. Then the stream of children stopped.
Two first-grade classes were missing.
One of them was his son's.
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Earlier that morning in Newtown, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother, authorities said. He then drove her Honda about five miles to Sandy Hook Elementary, wearing black military-style fatigues and carrying his brother's ID and at least three guns.
Lanza had gone to high school in Newtown, a well-to-do western Connecticut community of about 28,000 near the New York state line, where the holiday season brims with tree lightings and carolers. It was unclear what connection — if any — the dark-haired young man had to Sandy Hook Elementary, which sits at the end of a two-lane road lined with barns converted to houses.
Lanza parked in the fire lane by the school's main entrance, law enforcement sources said. Finding the main door locked, Lanza either smashed or shot the glass to get inside, where nearly 700 students in kindergarten through fourth grade were reading, drawing, scribbling notes.
Many children didn't realize the loud bangs they heard were gunfire. Maybe a custodian knocked over something? Some pans fell?
But the adults knew something was awry. Someone had flicked on the loudspeaker, and the sounds staffers heard clearly were not part of a drill. Teachers hurried their students into gym closets, coat cubbies — any hiding space they could find.
Kaitlin Roig rushed 15 small children into a bathroom and heaved a bookshelf in front of the door, the first-grade teacher told ABC News. Inside with them, she turned the lights off and told her class: Be quiet.
Some children whimpered. Some begged to go home. One tried to put on a brave face.
"I know karate, so it's OK," the student told her. "I'll lead the way out."
In the school library, fourth-grader Geneva Cunningham listened to the loudspeaker. She heard a scream, then deep breathing.
Geneva was among 20 students whom teachers herded into a closet. It's a just a drill, they reassured the children. Geneva heard glass shattering.
"We thought it was an animal at first," she said.
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