Listen: Sandy Hook 911 recordings show calm under duress

A memorial for Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims on Riverside Road near Dickenson Drive in Newtown Wednesday. A memorial for Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims on Riverside Road near Dickenson Drive in Newtown Wednesday. Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register Image 1 of / 270 Caption Close Listen: Sandy Hook 911 recordings show calm under duress 1 / 270 Back to Gallery

NEWTOWN >> Amid the most chilling of circumstances, there was calm.

That’s the thing that comes through most clearly in the seven Sandy Hook Elementary School 911 audio files the town released Wednesday.

LISTEN TO THE RECORDINGS HERE.

“Newtown 911, what’s the location of your emergency?” dispatcher Robert Nute says as he answers the first call at 9:35 a.m. Dec. 14, 2012.

“Sandy Hook School — I think there’s somebody shooting in here,” a calm female caller responds, giving the outside world the first brief glimpse of the horrific events that were unfolding as she spoke.

The Courant has identified that first caller as Barbara Halstead, a secretary in the school’s office.

“OK, what makes you think that?” asks Nute, who since has been honored nationally along with others on the town emergency dispatcher staff for the calm, professional way he handled the mayhem that broke loose that day.

“Because somebody’s got a gun. I caught a glimpse of somebody. They’re running down the hall,” says the caller — who Nute, a Sandy Hook School graduate and member of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company, has since said he had known for 30 years.

“They’re still shooting!” the woman says, as it becomes clear on the recording that despite her initial calm, she’s breathing heavily. “Sandy Hook School — please!”

In subsequent calls over the next eight or nine minutes — as phones ring all around him — Nute directs an unidentified teacher to lock her classroom door and keep her children away from the window.

He tells custodian Rick Thorne, the second caller — who calls at 9:36 — to “take cover.” Thorne remains on the phone for several minutes and at one point acts as a communications link between arriving police officers and the dispatch center.

Another dispatcher at one point speaks to a teacher who had just been shot in the foot, who tells the dispatcher she is safe. The female dispatcher tells her to apply pressure and wait for authorities to arrive.

“There’s still shooting going on, please!” says Thorne at one point as several loud pops ring out in the background. Thorne normally is the school’s night custodian but was filling in for the head custodian, who was off that day, officials have said.

Earlier, Thorne tells Nute, “I believe they’re shooting at the front, at the front glass. Something’s going on.”

“All right, I’ve got it,” Nute tells him. “I want you to stay on the line a bit. Where are you in the school?”

“I’m down the corridor,” Thorne says.

“All right, I want you to take cover,” says Nute.

“Jen, get the sergeant,” Nute can be heard telling a coworker, “All right, get everybody you can going down there.”

“I keep hearing shooting. I keep hearing popping. ... It’s still happening,” Thorne tells him later.

The teacher calls less than a minute after Thorne and speaks to a female dispatcher.

“It sounds like there are gunshots in the hallway. I’m a teacher in the school,” the teacher says.

“OK. Are you in the school right now?” the dispatcher asks.

“I’m in the school. I’m in a classroom,” says the teacher.

“Is everyone in the classroom? Are the doors locked?” asks the dispatcher.

“All of my students. The door’s not locked yet,” the teacher says. “I have to go lock it.”

“OK, go lock it,” says the dispatcher. “Keep everybody calm, keep everybody down and keep everybody away from the windows, OK?”

The release came 10 days before the anniversary of the shootings, in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza, armed with three semiautomatic guns, shot his way into the school and killed 20 first-graders and six female educators within minutes.

Even as desperate callers within the school sought help, they remained collected and dispatchers handled the extraordinary things they heard calmly.

The town released the recordings eight days after being ordered to by Superior Court Judge Eliot Prescott. The ruling ended a battle that previously went to the state Freedom of Information Commission after a request and complaint by The Associated Press.

State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky III had fought to keep the recordings from being released, but decided earlier this week not to appeal the judge’s ruling that they be made public.

The recordings released Wednesday represent only a portion of the calls that came in that day; only those that came over traditional telephone lines. Cellphone calls that went to a state police barracks have yet to be released, the Hartford Courant has reported.

Call Mark Zaretsky at 203-789-5722. Have questions, feedback or ideas about our news coverage? Connect directly with the editors of the New Haven Register at AskTheRegister.com.

PHOTOS

RELATED: Kindness, compassion abound as Newtown continues to heal