Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting leaves students, staff dead Officials said more details would be released later, after victims" families had been informed. The Associated Press, citing an unnamed source, reported that the death toll was 27, including 18 children. That would make this shooting one of the largest and deadliest in recent U.S. history. The AP also reported that a law enforcement official in Washington said the attacker was a 20-year-old man with ties to the school, Sandy Hook Elementary, and that one of the guns was a .223-caliber rifle. The official also said that New Jersey State Police were searching a location in that state in connection with the shootings. That official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the developing criminal investigation. Police were called about 9:30 a.m. Friday morning to the school, in a town about 60 miles northeast of NewYork City. Both state and local police converged on the school, Vance said, and "began a complete active shooter search of the building." TV reports also showed an FBI SWAT team on the scene. Students inside were evacuated to a nearby firehouse, where television reporters saw parents tearfully reuniting with their children. Students recounted hearing police officers on the roof, and classmates so frightened they became sick to their stomachs. In interview with New York's WABC television, student Brendan Murray said he was in the gym when he heard a banging sound. Students at first thought a custodian had knocked something over, but then they heard a scream. "Then a police came in and was like, "Is he in here?" Then he ran out," Murray said. "And then somebody yelled, "Get to a safe place!" So we went to the closet in the gym. Eventually, he said, police escorted the students out of the school and to a nearby firehouse, where they reunited with their classmates. "We sat in our classes," he said. And were all really happy that we were all alive. Parent Stephen Delgiadice told the AP 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, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America," he said. The superintendent's office said the district had locked down schools in Newtown. Schools in neighboring towns also were locked down as a precaution. A dispatcher at the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps said a teacher had been shot in the foot and taken to Danbury Hospital. Andrea Rynn, a spokeswoman at the hospital, said it had three patients from the school but she did not have information on the extent or nature of their injuries.