Adam Lanza was motivated in his shooting spree of Sandy Hook Elementary School by violent video games and an admiration of Norway spree shooter Anders Behring Breivik, law enforcement officials said.
Lanza killed six adults and 20 children at the Connecticut elementary school in the days before Christmas break, but he may have aimed to kill more than the 77 Brevik killed in his 2011 rampage in Norway.
The new Adam Lanza report came from a source within the law enforcement community, CBS News noted, but a Connecticut state police spokesman said the report was nothing more than speculation.
“All of it is speculation. There is no basis to the CBS story. We have not established a motive. It’s inaccurate,” Connecticut State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance said in a statement.
Officials familiar with the Newtown investigation told CBS News that Lanza picked the school because it was an easy target and contained the “largest cluster of people.”
There was another motivation, the report found — violent video games. The report found that investigators recovered a large number of video games from Adam Lanza’s basement.
From CBS News :
“[Police have] also recovered what they called a “trove” of video games from the basement of Lanza’s home. Sources say Lanza spent countless hours there alone, in a private gaming room with the windows blacked out, honing his computer shooting skills.”
Evidence showed that in Lanza’s mind, he was acting out the fantasies of a video game in his shooting spree, Reuters noted. In his mind, each kill amounted to a type of score, the report said.
Adam Lanza, who was reportedly obsessed with Anders Behring Breivik, ended his spree sooner than the Norway killer. While Brievik evaded police before his eventual surrender, Lanza took his life when police closed in.