20 children killed in U.S. elementary school shooting

Many details of the attack were still unfolding, but the sight of dozens of emergency vehicles and police spread across the wooded campus made it clear Sandy Hook Elementary School has become the nation's latest infamous crime scene.
For now, evacuated children are being comforted and reuniting with their parents at a nearby firehouse where, outside, an American flag flies at half-staff, CNN reports.
There, couples enter and exit, some leaving without children and walking silently and tearfully past a nearby cemetery. One couple, escorted by firefighters seemed especially shaken -- eyes bloodshot and lips trembling -- stricken by the events of a clearly devastating day.
In the hours following the morning attack, parents rushed to the school after first hearing the news. They reunited with their children, clutching them and then hurrying away.
Lynn Wasik wrapped her arms around her 8-year-old daughter, Alexis, cloaked against the cold in an oversized jacket. The girl described her ordeal after police and teachers barged into her third-grade classroom and ordered her and her classmates to hide in a corner.
"Everybody was crying," Alexis said. "And I just heard the police officers yelling."
Her mother said she first learned about the emergency through an automated phone call message. She said the message wasn't clear about the school where the incident had occurred. In a panic, she raced to Sandy Hook, eventually finding Alexis unharmed.
"My heart is in a million pieces for those families," said Lynn Wasik. "Who could do something like this? It's just sickening."
Like Wasik, other parents wrapped their arms around their children as they hurried away from the scene.
The FBI presence became much more evident in the afternoon. Several federal officers in tactical gear were coordinating with state and local law enforcement. Officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrived to join the investigation.
"I was in the gym at the time," student Brendan Murray told CNN affiliate WABC. "I heard screaming and I thought a custodian was knocking down things. Police came in, teachers yelled to get to a safe place. Police were knocking on the doors -- police were at every door, leading us down, quick, quick."
Brendan said he later joined classmates and ran to the firehouse "really quick. We were all really happy that we were all alive."
At the firehouse, counselors such as Rabbi Shaul Praver lended a hand to help the traumatized. Some suffered from "terrible anxiety," Praver told CNN. "It's very hard to console parents in this situation," he said. "There's no theological answer to this. What you have to do is hug them and just be with them and cry with them."
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