Stories of heroism emerge amid tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 14, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And this is a Fox News alert. We are just 12 hours removed from an unthinkable tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where we know 28 people are dead, 20 of them children, seven are adults and one of them the shooter. Now, approximately 9:30 this morning, a 911 call came from the school with reports of a shooter inside. Local and state police immediately responded and what they found inside was described by police as quote, "horrific."

Now, we have just obtained the audio tapes from police scanners while the tragedy was unfolded. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER 1: 6/7 Sandy Hook School. Call is indicating that she thinks someone is shooting in the building. Units responding to Sandy Hook School, the front glass has been broken out of the school. They are unsure why. Alright, all units! The individual I have on the phone is continuing to hear what he believes to be gunfire. All units are responding to Sandy Hook at this time. The shooting appears to have stopped. It is silent at this time. The school is in lockdown.

UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER 2: Be advised, we should have multiple weapons including long range and shotguns.

East side, we need officers here ASAP.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, as of this hour, here is what we know, the shooter is 20-year-old Adam Lanza, his mother was a teacher at Sandy Hook. And she is believed to be among the dead reportedly killed in her home by Lanza just before the assault on the school. Now, police are currently questioning his brother Ryan who initially was mistakenly identified as the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Now, police are in the midst of the horrible task of identifying the dead. We are told this will be a very lengthy process and will likely take until tomorrow morning. This remains a very fluid situation with crucial pieces of information continued to emerge, and our very own Rick Leventhal has been reporting for Fox all day. He's on the scene. Rick, with the very latest.

RICK LEVENTHAL, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Sean, elementary schools are not supposed to be crime scenes, but as you mentioned, that is exactly what is happening tonight at Sandy Hook where the medical examiner and teams of investigators are collecting evidence and going through the gruesome task of identifying the bodies of 27 victims, including the shooter who shot himself after killing six adults and 20 kids inside of that elementary school.

What we are now being told -- what I've been told by investigators and Federal Law Enforcement sources is that the shooter Adam Lanza killed his mother, shot her in the head, in the home that they share here in Newtown, Connecticut, early this morning and then took three weapons that she owned, a glock, a Sig Sauer handgun and a rifle and went to the school driving her car. The school where she apparently worked as a substitute teacher.

He somehow gained entrance to that school through the security and then opened fire. We know the police responded. You heard the police tapes, we know they called in reinforcements as soon as they arrived and those officers didn't waste any time. They went into the school, they got all of the kids and the survivors out of the school, moved them to a nearby fire house which was set as a staging area and that is where the frantic parents were directed to collect their children and take care of their kids and get them home safely, Sean.

HANNITY: You know, Rick. A couple of things emerged today. One of the teachers have gone on record. We'll show that in just a minute here, but the school had recently added new security where you had to be identified and then buzzed into the school and it was at that point where the shooter immediately went to the administration. And what we learned was, this was during morning announcements and at that time, somebody kept up the announcements and that served as a warning for a lot of people in the school and a lot of other stories of heroism including the custodian and some of the teachers. What have you heard as you've been down on the ground all day today?

LEVENTHAL: Well, we have heard that some of children and adults in the school heard screams over the loud speaker system apparently as the shooting was unfolding because they were coming over the speaker as they were doing the morning announcements. Of course, children and teachers also heard gunshots in the school and many of them took cover, some locked themselves in classrooms and others ran for the exits. And we heard stories that at least one young boy, six-years-old watching his teacher shot right in front of him and running for safety out of the classroom and bringing some of his classmates with him.

HANNITY: Yes, he apparently took his friends with him. Yes. I read that.

LEVENTHAL: Yes. Yes. And we don't know again how this shooter got into the building whether they buzzed him in because they recognized him, because his mother worked there, or whether he somehow circumvented the security, Sean.

HANNITY: Yes. All right. Rick Leventhal, we'll be checking in throughout the night. Thanks for being with us.

Joining me now on the phone, Connecticut State Representative John Frey is with us and his two nieces and nephew were at the school at the time of the shooting. Mr. Frey, thank you for joining us tonight.

From what I understand, a community of about, what, 27,000 people fairly well to do, 60 miles northeast of the New York City. What can you tell us about the community and what you know from your nieces and nephews?

JOHN FREY, CONNECTICUT STATE REPRESENTATIVE (on the phone): Well, Sean, thanks. You're correct, it is a great town here. You know, I can't stop thinking about last night. Last night Sandy Hook Elementary School had their holiday concert that I attended where my two nieces were a part of the choir, and I think back to the hundred kids on the stage and their families and their siblings running throughout the auditorium and 24 hours, 12 hours later this tragedy occurred.

HANNITY: Yes. And obviously, have you spoken to any of the other people in town and any of the other stories that we have been hearing including the custodian being a hero. We have a teacher on tape that I will show in a second and the lengths to which people went to protect their children was pretty amazing.

FREY: It was incredible. I know one of my nieces was in the library. And they were ushered into a closet to protect them. My sister did something which I don't think I could have done. She was on her way to the school and there were five -- four boys and a girl all in first grade running up the street quite a distance from the fire house and she stopped and picked them up not knowing what was going on and one of the boys said that there was someone with a gun trying to kill them in the school and she called the school, there was no answer, call the police department, bring them to the police department and she actually stayed with them. Because obviously, the police department had emptied out and stayed with them not knowing the fate of her own three kids in the school.

HANNITY: Yes. Just senseless evil and our thoughts and prayers I hope you know from the country are with your community tonight, sir. Thank you.

FREY: Absolutely.

HANNITY: State Representative Frey, thank you for joining me. We appreciate you being with us.

And we go back now live to Newtown, Connecticut, where Fox News' own Bill Hemmer is standing by to give us the very latest details of this deadly tragedy. Bill.

BILL HEMMER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Sean, good evening. The story is not even 12 hours old. You mentioned the news broke at 9:30 this morning. We were on the air live at about 10:15 Eastern Time when the news just started to come across the wire. And Sean, frankly at the time, we were told that one person had been shot in the foot and being treated at the local hospital. There is very little news after that and that went on for a considerable amount of time. It was 45 minutes to an hour before we started learning more details about this. And now, when you go back and you piece together this in your mind, the reason for that is obvious now. There were no other injuries, there were just dead bodies inside this elementary school here in Connecticut. And the police were then just absorbing this information and going through it from room themselves and trying to make sure that the killer, the gunman was accounted for and no one else was inside. We have been told now that many of these children were told to close their eyes and run to get out of the building and to make sure they did not look around the surroundings where they were.

I spoke to a woman about an hour ago, she has a third year old daughter who was, she is OK. But she told her mother that they were led out of the back door of the school to make sure they did not pass by any of the dead children who were lying there in the classrooms where they had gone to school here. And these stories are just so chilling, Sean. And when you think, we are learning about this news for the first time. It just blows your mind the level of evil that rolled through this town today.

HANNITY: I don't think I could say it any better than that, Bill. And the idea that some of these kids literally were told, close your eyes as they walked them out. There were three stories that really struck me today that came to pass. One is the six-year-old that we just mentioned literally as the shooter was shooting, he grabbed her friends and he ran out of the classroom. The other, a custodian that was running up and down the halls, doing everything he could do to warn people. We have a teacher, numerous stories of teachers that were hiding kids in closets and doing everything they can do and locking doors and putting them in the lavatories and locking doors. One teacher was interviewed by ABC earlier tonight. I want to play that for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WORLD NEWS"/ABC)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I put one of my students on top of the toilet. I just knew we had to get in there and just telling them, it's going to be OK, you're going to be all right. I had pulled the book shelf before I closed the door in front of that. So, we were completely barricaded in, I turned the lights off.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Did you tell them to be quiet?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Oh, yes,

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Did you worry about --

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes. I told them to be quiet. I told them we have to be absolutely quiet. Because I was just so afraid that if he did come out and then he would hear us and then maybe just start shooting the door. So, I said, no, we just have to be absolutely quiet and we have -- I said, there are bad guys out there now and we need to wait for the good guys.

I just wanted us to be OK. And I was so, so saddened that there are people who in this situation that are not OK. And my heart goes out to anyone who knew them and was part of their lives. I can't imagine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: It is hard to come to grips with -- as you called this -- evil. And these parents, I am sure many of them had bought Christmas gifts for their little children and now they're planning funerals and then Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is going to come and they are not going to have their kids home.

HEMMER: You know, Sean, a few of the things, we are just now learning about the victims. And this is going to be the next wave in the story. And if you think it's sad now, hang on, because now we're going to meet the people who were killed inside of this building. We are told the principal, she's been in the school district for years. I don't want to give her name out because it has not made public yet. Age 47. She had two daughters and three step daughters. She leaves all of them behind, a husband George who was a teacher here in the district as well.

Tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time, that's when we expect the state police here in Connecticut to give positive identification to the bodies inside of that building. I mentioned this earlier, you know, when you are five-years-old, you're 10, 11 days away from Christmas. You believe that Santa Claus is going to be in your house in 10-11 days. And today, the devil came to this town and this town has to live with this for the rest of their lives.

HANNITY: All right. Bill Hemmer, reporting tonight. Thank you for being with us. Bill, we appreciate. This is now the second deadliest shooting in U.S. history.

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