Death Toll Revised Down to 24 After Monstrous Oklahoma Tornado…100+ Injured…Children Among the Dead…Stunning Pictures…Woman Finds Dog During Interview!

Watch Live: Second House Hearing on IRS Scandal

Heartbreaking Photo: The Shooting Victims and Survivors in Victoria Soto’s First Grade Class Picture

Dec. 23, 2012 1:09pm Madeleine Morgenstern

They were just first-graders posing on class picture day. Now the names printed on the photograph spell out who perished the day a gunman stormed into their school.

“This is Victoria Soto’s class,” Shannon Engel, mother of 6-year-old victim Olivia Engel, told the New York Post.

Soto, 27, was killed trying to protect her students at Sandy Hook Elementary from the shooter’s bullets, hiding them in a closet to try and keep them safe. She’s pictured smiling widely with her 15 first-graders and aide Ann Marie Murphy, who tried to shield 6-year-old Dylan Hockley from the gunfire.

Also pictured in the photo are Allison Wyatt, Jesse Lewis and Avielle Richman, all 6 years old.

Victoria Sotos First Grade Class Photo | Sandy Hook Elementary Newtown Connecticut Shooting

The victims and survivors in Victoria Soto’s class at Sandy Hook Elementary. (Image source: New York Post)

Benghazi, IRS, AP...What's next? Only TheBlaze TV offers the truth from Glenn Beck, Andrew Wilkow, and Real News from TheBlaze. Get instant access and a free trial here.

Back to The Blaze »

Comments (62)

Guitar Master
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 11:05pm
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
From THE REPORTER
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

To be realistic for a minute, would things have been a lot different if Teacher Soto had been trained in firearms and was able to pop this Lanza guy before he was able to kill so many students? Wouldn’t doing that have saved many innocent children from certain death? Better still, if there was an armed guard in that school and Lanza probably wouldn’t have entered the building in the first place. This example proves how idiotic the idea of banning, so called, assault weapons really is ! Of course, would you expect anything less from a neutered Congress and this administration?

There is only one sure way to fight a gunman and that is with a gun. He kills you or you kill him first. Do you remember the old phrase “shoot first and ask questions later?” In this case most of these kids would be walking around today.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Salamander
  Posted on December 24, 2012 at 12:04am
  Agreed, with the arming of teachers, at their discretion and with the support of administration and parents! As for an armed guard–he/she would be the first target of anyone entering the school with malice in mind! After dropping the guard, the miscreant would have a field-day! Nope! The CORRECT answer is to insert as much uncertainty and surprise into the mix, on the side of the school, and that means that weapons training and recurrent certification IS A MUST!
  
  Report this comment
Cottoneyed77
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 9:48pm
The left bathes in blood everyday of their miserable, hypocritical lives. 50M babies killed since 1972 will testify to that.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- VoteBushIn12
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 10:48pm
  How can they testify if they were never alive?
  
  Report this comment
Cottoneyed77
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 9:33pm
All this feigned outrage by the left! When they have NO RIGHT. No standing, given that they celebrate a “women’s right to choose”, that “right” having murdered over 50M babies since the wholesale slaughter began in 1972. They have “blood up to their bridles” running down their streets! So please, all you leftists, we don’t need any lectures about killing from the likes of you!

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
katzkiner
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 9:17pm
The left works so hard to raise our children to be heathens, then turns around and blames us when they act like heathens. ????

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Cottoneyed77
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 9:38pm
  Well said, here, here!
  
  Report this comment
- Inlightofthings
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 10:13pm
  KATZ:
  That’s the way I see it. Liberals have been building this society since the 60′s. With every negative their movement generates, there is a conservative to point the finger of blame. It fits with their thinking of no accountability or self responsibility.
  
  Report this comment
- Cottoneyed77
  Posted on December 24, 2012 at 12:13am
  Here’s all the left has when faced with serious subject matter. “How can they testify if they were never alive”. Cute, little, snarky, nothingness quips. That’s all, that’s it. To them the loss of at least two generations of Americans is less than nothing, in fact, they celebrate it as “diversity! . These people aren’t really alive, for inside them lies darkness, an ancient darkness. Common decency cannot be found in them. That’s why the decent cannot live with the indecent. The gulf is simply to great.
  
  Report this comment
- thequeenbee
  Posted on December 24, 2012 at 12:38am
  Spot on!
  
  Report this comment
yiska8
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 9:00pm
I thought about teaching just before Columbine happened. Then I realized I wouldn’t be able to defend my own classroom full of kids. I’d be unarmed in a “gun free zone” or “zero tolerance zone”. I would be rendered powerless if a psycho with a weapon got onto and into the school grounds. This idea was floated back in 1999 and all we did was make security plans and gun free zones. A .10 mm in the hands of a conscience and trained person hellbent on protecting your children is a far better option than weakening the Second Amendment which does nothing but leave more bad guys out there with guns the average, law abiding American can no longer access.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
woodcellar
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 8:50pm
My Dad born in 1919. He told me he went to a country school (8 grades of course) With 44 students, one teacher. They moved to a different farm that March and there were 56 at that school. One teacher. They all learned to read and write too. No one left behind. My dad was very good at math and he quite school in the 9 grade to help the family during the depression. He was probably better educated that ½ the grads in the city now.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- rangerskippy
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 8:57pm
  Woodcellar
  
  My father in law attended school during the depression in rural Alabama. He told about getting on the bus in the morning with a 12 gauge shotgun and taking it to school. Once at school, he would drop it off with the principal. After school, he and the principal would walk from the school to the river, and hunt squirells and rabbits all the way back to their farms.
  
  No one thought anything about it. No kids were ever shot back then, no murders took place at school.
  
  But back then, they prayed in school, read the Bible in school, and they learned those ten commandments.
  
  Report this comment
rangerskippy
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 8:48pm
WHO IS KEVIN JENNINGS?????

When is the media going to talk to, or about Kevin Jennings?

He is Obama’s pick as the SAFE SCHOOL CZAR. What did he do to make our schools safer. Why is no one asking about him, but instead throwing daggers at the NRA? The NRA is there to protect our second amendment rights, and they are doing thei job. Jennings was supposed to oversee keeping our schools safe? Did he?

Jennings claim to fame was teaching homosexuality to our school children? Did this protect them?

How is it, pushing our kids towards a lifestyle (2.5% of the population) that has 64% of the nations syphilis, 57% of new HIV cases, and does 1/3 of the nations child molestations supposed to make us safe?

When will the media do journalism and start asking real questions.

When will someone tell us how for three days we were told that the killer was found with to pistols, and that an AR was found in his car and then the coroner decided everyone had to be killed with a rifle? Did the MSM screw up the message, or did something change?

Who was the man arrested in the woods?

What was found in the killer’s house?

Was his mom a member of the NRA? If not, why is the media so bent on going after the NRA? and not asking questions to Obama about his picking Kevin Jennings as SAFE SCHOOL CZAR?

What video games did this killer play?

What music did he listen to?

What medications was he on?

The MSM called him marksman, did he shoot competitions? Did

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
woodcellar
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 8:31pm
Add your comments

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
Cottoneyed77
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 6:26pm
A few days before this tragedy took place “Django” Foxx, on SNL, commented that he got to kill a “lotta’ white people” in his latest movie. And he got some chuckles and applause! Isn’t that what happened in Sandy Hook, so why all the hand wringing by the indecent left?

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
SaturdaysWarrior76
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 5:57pm
Sweet babies, rest in peace in the arms of your Father in Heaven.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
bdandsl
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 5:47pm
Bless their hearts, but I can’t get past two teachers for 15 kids…?

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- 48Straights
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 6:52pm
  I was thinking the same thing. In my first grade class there were 30 kids. We all made it out alive thanks to the business end of a paddle that was there but never used.
  
  Who spells the “Engel” name with a lower case letter? Time for home schooling,
  
  My prayers to all the kids at Sandy, especially Olivia during this most hard time.
  
  Report this comment
- termyt
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 8:22pm
  Not unusual to have a teacher’s aid. She may have serviced more than one class or may have been present if one (or more) of the kids were “special needs” children, now in the general population in many schools because of “No Child Left Behind.”
  
  Report this comment
RinkyDink34
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 4:45pm
Moral decay of the USA is what killed these innocent folks, not bullets.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- PlowMan
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 5:28pm
  I wholeheartedly agree! I read a comment by a Facebook poster today that said he thinks bringing back Bible reading in school was going too far. I ask so if for the last 30 years we would have had the Bible in the classroom and this wouldn’t have happened, wouldnt that have been better? No response from him.
  
  Report this comment
- Zoe
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 5:46pm
  Which if the commandments don’t these people want children – society learning……
  
  Report this comment
steelpanther
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 4:42pm
She’s the one they claim had a facebook memorial page 4 days before the shooting took place isn’t she?

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- All Pro
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 4:50pm
  How dare you question the official story. The police will be at your door momentarily to take you to the re-education camp.
  Click on the link I posted.
  
  Report this comment
- sta
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 7:11pm
  What?!?
  
  Report this comment
Mike Benton
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 4:10pm
It is clear that Islam can create fanatic jihad types; our culture is producing these nut-cases so it is time we treat our schools like we treat our airports and airplanes.
Put an air marshal type person in every school. Select one or more volunteers from the staff who agree to intense training and certification. They could range from janitor to top administrator. And put a big sign on the door that says the Marshal is on duty, but keep their identity secret
Add a good access control system to the doors, like a hotel, and all doors lock until a teacher allows access with a card. Each staff person carries a pendant that they can press to set off a school wide alert in an instant. Any security expert worth his pay could design a good system in an hour (I did it for years…).

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
treyeanglelockdown
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 3:11pm
It is a very sad fact that people who died for our freedoms don’t get any credit at a time like this. And it’s even sadder to have to see innocent children and teachers die so our enemy within can take our freedoms away. And they will stop at nothing to change your world as you know it so they can stay kings of this world.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- F.O.S. DIAPERHEAD
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 4:06pm
  Never ever underestimate what the commies will do to get what they want. They will eat their own!
  
  Arm the God within us against the devil within them!
  
  More God + more guns = more peace
  
  Mutual Respect! Guns . . . no self respecting individual would be caught without one!
  
  What does it say about our values that we do not invest in what is needed to secure such God given blessings! How much are our kids worth? Are they not worth protecting? Libs are so F’ing stupid!
  No guns in the hands of protectors = MORE security? How Liberal is that! Just assume the fetal position and you will magically be reinserted into mommy’s womb and all the troubles will go away! You can live there forever!
  
  Report this comment
- F.O.S. DIAPERHEAD
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 4:11pm
  Arm the protectors so our kids can have a FIGHTING chance at life!
  
  Report this comment
HOOT_OWL
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:52pm
Damn you anti-gun agenda pushing bast4rds all to hell, for using these precious innocent victims as political fodder for your commie agenda.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
LIBSALWAYSLIE
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:23pm
Gun Free Zone’s = Helpless Victims, no difference.

Pray for the families.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Polarized America
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:54pm
  i don’t know why but my Daughter has always had a big fear of Guns, When she was little and we were in a store she hid behind me and said ” Daddy that guy has a Gun ” it was a Cop ..lol
  Since this massacre and the talk of Teachers being armed she told me she thought that was a good idea .. (She has 3 kids, 2 are in school ages 5 & 7),,,, i said ..”ya right, you wanted to be a Teacher and i can just imagine you carrying a Gun & using it…lol
  …she said .” Dad i have kids now and would not have a problem protecting them”…./;-)
  
  This spring she’s going to learn how to use one, at her request ………….
  
  Report this comment
Saving_the_Republic.com
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:09pm
What do you tell the 10 kids that survived? These kids are ruined for life and will always be haunted by that day.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- 1776freedomofspeech
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:18pm
  Here is the number to a good shrink?
  
  Report this comment
- USAMama
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:55pm
  I know, I think about them a lot. In a way the deceased are better off because they are in Heaven with Jesus. These precious ones still have to make it through this world and all it’s evils, having seen the ugliest first hand so young. I pray they grow to love God and not blame Him. Because they’ll need Him!!
  
  Ever since this tragic day I haven’t been able to get this old church song out of my head:
  
  This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through
  My treasures and my hopes are all beyond the blue;
  Where many Christian children have gone on before,
  And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
  
     Oh Lord, You know I have no friend but you
     If Heaven’s not my home, Oh Lord what would I do?
     Angels have taken me to Heaven’s open door
     And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
  
  Over in glory land there is no dying there
  The saints are shouting Victory and singing everywhere
  I hear the voice of Nell that I have heard before
  And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore!
  
  Report this comment
- Taquoshi
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 9:52pm
  No, I don’t agree these children are “ruined for life”. You tell them that God has work for them to do here on earth. When it is their time, He’ll call them. There is nothing that those survivors did or didn’t do that would have changed the outcome for the ones who died.
  
  Sometimes out of great tragedy comes great good. Look at John Walsh. He lost his son Adam. His life work became America’s Most Wanted.
  
  After Candice Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver, she went on to found Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD).
  
  That is not to diminish the tragedy of the shootings, but to say that we simply don’t know how the shootings will affect the survivors. And I would not want to condemn them to a life of misery simply because that’s what I think.
  
  Report this comment
- USAMama
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 10:53pm
  Taquoshi, right on. Way to think positive :)
  
  Report this comment
lukerw
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:52pm
In real Reality… there are only Preditors & Prey… and each suffering from SelfDelusion of being something greater.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
All Pro
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:45pm
Look into those faces and you’ll understand why we need to question with boldness and refuse to shut up until we get answers.
Everyone that cares, please read
http://www.sott.net/article/254873-Sandy-Hook-massacre-Official-story-spins-out-of-control

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Zeb
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 8:19pm
  more
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCep22SPs0I
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX18A12ulNY&feature=endscreen
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFSK9uSq1gM
  
  Report this comment
geminimoon
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:36pm
So sad to see them all gone, such a shame!

Off topic, kind of, how is it there are only 15 kids in a class? In Ohio there are between 25 -35 kids in each class with one teacher and no aides. Just curious…

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- Polarized America
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:45pm
  That area in Connecticut is very wealthy….could be a budget issue in Ohio
  
  Report this comment
- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:50pm
  They are in one of the wealthiest small communities on the planet. That is how they were able to have such small classes.
  
  Report this comment
- LeadNotFollow
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:50pm
  They are not all gone. 10 of the kids in the photo are survivors.
  
  Report this comment
progressiveslayers
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:25pm
It’s a damn shame,how many more lives does this tyrannical government require to quench it’s thirst for power and control over us? The absurd ‘gun free zone’ sign didn’t save a single life it’s just an idiotic law and sign that produces death.

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- stopprintn
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:02pm
  Why cant more people talk our points like the Nuge?
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZCxArSFRcw
  
  Report this comment
- progressiveslayers
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 2:24pm
  Ted schooled the puffer,he got a free education now deport Morgan ASAP his liberal stench is sickening.
  
  Report this comment
- MONICNE
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 3:13pm
  If the Blaze needed to publish these names, they should have capitalized and spelled them correctly.
  
  Please respect the little lost souls whose heavenly rest is not yet a comfort for their loved ones, their community, and their nation. If these were my children I would still seek justice, if not peace, for as long as I live. Maybe I wii anyway.
  
  Peace at Christmas to All First Responders
  
  Report this comment
- stopprintn
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 3:28pm
  Source, new york post.
  
  Report this comment
forthepeople
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:23pm
God Bless them ! The Real Hero’s, unlike the blame everything else cowards in washington dc .

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply
1776freedomofspeech
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:20pm
Hitler policed up all the guns and then massacred about a million kids…

Report this comment
Log in to ReplyReply
- progressiveslayers
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:27pm
  Try telling that to modern day Amerikans and you’ll get the deer in the headlights response.
  
  Report this comment
- TSUNAMI_22
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:40pm
  1776
  
  The other day I saw a picture of a t-shirt that basically said: “If abortion clinics used guns during the commission of 50 million murders of helpless infants, would the government ban it?”
  
  It kind of made sense.
  
  Report this comment
- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:51pm
  TSUNAMI_22, I would wear that T shirt. Makes a lot of sense too.
  
  Report this comment
- 1776freedomofspeech
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:57pm
  @TSUNAMI_22
  I have heard that the Gov’t likes the abortion option vs the WIC, welfare, foodstamps, juvenile detention facilities, jail and prison $$ that must be spent on each unaborted child.
  
  Report this comment
- 1776freedomofspeech
  Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:59pm
  @progressiveslayers
  They have not known true loss of freedom yet. Nor true suffering.
  
  Report this comment
LeadNotFollow
Posted on December 23, 2012 at 1:20pm
Such adorable Angels, while on Earth and now in Heaven.
We will never forget the victims or the survivors.
You will always be in our Hearts. God Bless.

Report this comment
Log in to Reply Reply

It appears that you have Javascript Disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser preferences for a better user experience on TheBlaze. You can not comment without Javascript enabled.