Twenty-seven people, including 20 children, have been killed after a shooting at a primary school in the US state of Connecticut, officials say.
The shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, which is in the western part of Connecticut, on Friday morning. The school had been evacuated and police had secured the scene, reported Al Jazeera's Cath Turner from the scene.
The gunman, said to be in his 20s, was also deceased, he said.
Lieutenant Paul Vance, spokesperson for the state police, confirmed the number of fatalities, adding that another adult had been killed at a "secondary crime scene", which authorities said was the home of the shooter.
The incident is the deadliest shooting at a primary or secondary school in US history, Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reported from Washington DC.
"A man walked into the school office and began shooting. He has been found dead, and there were two handguns by his side," reported Fisher.
Three children were treated for their injuries at the local hospital in Danbury, with two of them succumbing to their wounds. All of those killed at the school, the police said, were shot in two rooms.
A second suspect was arrested after a search operation by the police in a nearby wooded area, reported Al Jazeera's Turner.
The school superintendent's office said that all schools in the the district of Newtown, where the shooting took place, had been locked down in order to ensure the safety of students and staff.
Lieutenant Vance said that both state and local police had been deployed to secure the site of the attack, and that site was now "secure".
Fleeing ... children are led away by teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School
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