Connecticut shooter ‘competed’ Breivik

NEW YORK - Reuters

A child sits on a Newtown bus leaving the new Sandy Hook Elementary School. A gunman Dec 14 burst in and killed 20 children and six adults.

The man who shot dead 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school wanted to kill more people than the 77 slain by a Norwegian man in a 2011 rampage, CBS News reported on Feb. 18, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.

A Connecticut state police spokesman dismissed the report as inaccurate speculation. Adam Lanza, 20, who killed himself as police closed in on him at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, saw himself in direct competition with Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting attack in Norway on July 22, 2011, CBS said. Breivik surrendered to police.

Citing two officials briefed on the Newtown investigation, CBS said Lanza targeted the elementary school because he saw it as the “easiest target” with the “largest cluster of people.” The report did no say how the investigators learned of Lanza’s desire to compete with Breivik.

Lanza was also motivated by violent videogames and had spent numerous hours playing games and working on his computer shooting skills, CBS said.