Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza armed himself with hundreds of bullets on Dec. 14 before he entered the Newtown school. But he also did one more thing.
He put in a pair of earplugs.
Investigators don't know whether the earplugs are significant to
their probe, but they have speculated as to whether Lanza used them
because it was a habit from shooting at gun ranges, or to muffle
children's screams during his shooting rampage.
"It's just weird [that he popped
in earplugs] given what he was about to go do," a source said. "It's not
like he had to worry about long-term protection of his hearing because
he had to know he wasn't coming back out of the building."
As police wrap up at least the crime-scene portion of their
investigation into Lanza's murderous spree that left 26 people dead in
the school, including 20 first-graders, the earplugs are not the only
evidence that shows Lanza might have carried habits either from the
shooting range or the virtual world of video games into his real-world
massacre.
Lanza changed magazines frequently as he fired his way through the
first-grade classrooms of Lauren Rousseau and Victoria Soto, sometimes
shooting as few as 15 shots from a 30-round magazine, sources said.
More than a week after the shooting, investigators were still finding
bullets under doors and in carpets and walls in the school as they
tried to match the casings to the magazines.
Investigators are aware that frequent reloading is common in violent
video games because an experienced player knows never to enter a new
building or room without a full magazine so as not to risk running out
of bullets. This has led them to speculate privately that this might be a
reason that he replaced magazines frequently.
Investigators have not said how many shots Lanza fired with the
Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle after he entered the school by firing
half a dozen rounds through the glass at the school entrance. Sources
said that he fired approximately 150 rounds during the shooting spree.
Besides the earplugs, he was wearing all black clothes under a drab
olive green utility vest with pockets filled with 30-round magazines for
the Bushmaster.
Lanza left a shotgun, capable of firing 20 rounds, in the trunk of
the car. All of the guns were registered to his mother, Nancy Lanza, and
appear to have been bought legally between 2010 and 2012, sources said.
Police also found bullets outside the school in the parking lot,
including some in at least three cars belonging to school personnel,
including Rousseau's car. Earlier this month, state police brought the
cars used by the first Newtown police officers to arrive at the school
back to the scene to try to determine if perhaps Lanza was shooting at
them when they arrived. No police cars were hit and no officers have
reported that they believed they were fired upon.
Lanza's killing spree started earlier that morning at his home on
Yogananda Street in Newtown, where he killed his mother with four shots
to the head with a .223-caliber rifle while she slept. In searching the
house, police discovered that Lanza had thousands of dollars worth of
violent video games.
Before he left the house, Lanza destroyed the hard drive on his
computer, which likely kept some of the records of what games he played
and who he played with. It also destroyed any chance to see if he had a
manifesto or had written down anything indicating that he planned the
shootings or why he chose the elementary school.
Lanza killed himself in Soto's room using one of the two pistols he
was carrying when he realized that police were closing in. He was still
wearing the earplugs when police found his body.
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earplugs are to protect your ears from loud noises. This must be a troll site if it is questioning why he wore earplugs.
ReplyDeletetelfer cronos
why wear earplugs if your gonna kill yourself at the end of are killing spree your the troll..
ReplyDeleteHe wore earplugs so he didn't get raddled. He probably never fired a weapon in an enclosed area, the last thing he wanted was a terrible ringing in his ears while he tried to concentrate on his terrible spree.
ReplyDelete