WASHINGTON — Wiping away tears, an emotional President Barack Obama spoke on Friday afternoon on the Connecticut elementary school shooting that left 27 people dead, including 20 children.
Click here for live-streaming coverage of the tragedy from Connecticut.
“Our hearts are broken today,” said Obama about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, on Friday morning. “We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. Each time I learn the news I react not as a president but as anybody else would as a parent.”
Related: 27 Killed, Including 20 Children, in Ct. School Shooting
Earlier on Friday, Obama ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the victims of the shooting.
“The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10,” said Obama. “They had their entire lives ahead of them, birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.”
The President, in his brief address, mentioned not only Friday’s shooting but the shooting at an Oregon mall earlier this week that left three people – including the shooter – dead.
“As a country, we have been through this too many times,” said Obama. “This evening Michelle and I will do what every parent in America will do – hug our children a little tighter and tell them that we love them.”
“There are families in Connecticut that cannot do that tonight and they need all of us tonight. May God bless the memory of the victims and in the words of scripture heal the broken-hearted and bind up their wounds.”
