Audio: Listen to the calls here (WARNING THIS MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME READERS)
Their out-of-breath voices trembling with fear and interrupted by the blast of gunshots, Sandy Hook Elementary School employees pleaded with emergency dispatchers for help multiple times on the morning of the worst grade-school shooting in U.S. history, newly released audio from Newtown’s 911 call center reveals.
“I keep hearing shooting. I keep hearing popping,” Rick Thorne, the school’s acting head custodian, can be overheard on one of several 911 calls he placed on Dec. 14, 2012.
Newtown officials relented Wednesday in their long-running campaign to block the public’s access to the tapes, a week after a state Superior Court judge ordered their release.
For the first time, the real time sounds of fear, bewilderment and confusion help convey the unspeakable toll of gunman Adam Lanza’s shooting spree.
“I think there’s somebody shooting in here, Sandy Hook School,” a female caller tells a dispatcher.
“What makes you think that?” the dispatcher responds.
“Because somebody’s got a gun. I got a glimpse of somebody and they’re running. They’re still running and they’re still shooting. Sandy Hook School, please.”
Twenty children, none of them older than 7, and six adult females died in the shooting. Two other people were wounded.
Dispatchers instructed Thorne, who was locked inside another wing of the school, to stay put and defend himself in place.
Newtown officials released seven audio files in total Wednesday through a Danbury law firm that acts as the town’s corporation counsel.
On one, a female who was shot in the foot is told by emergency dispatcher to put pressure on the wound until paramedics arrive.
At least five gunshots can be heard in the background as Thorne communicated with emergency dispatchers, who placed him on hold more than once as they responded to the flood on 911 calls.
“There’s still shooting going on, please,” Thorne tells the dispatcher 3 minutes and 9 seconds into one of the audio files.
Thirty-one seconds later, a Newtown dispatcher is overheard telling another dispatcher: “I need you to call state police.”
Thorne’s call trails off with the sound of another gunshot.
Lanza fired 154 shots from his Bushmaster XM-15 E2S rifle before turning a Glock semi-automatic handgun on himself. The shooting lasted 11 minutes.