UPDATE – Initial reports by credible news sources
identifying 24-year-old Ryan Lanza of Hoboken as the shooter appear to have been premature and inaccurate. 20-year-old Adam Lanza, his younger brother is the shooting suspect. Adam, the suspected shooter, is deceased, and Ryan, of Hoboken, NJ was taken into police custody for questioning. He was released, and police say he was misidentified because his identification was found at the scene of the crime.
UPDATE – A friend of Ryan Lanza’s, History channel social media employee Andrew Fletcher was the first to point out the error of identification. He tweeted this photo less than an hour ago of a screen-capped Facebook conversation with Ryan Lanza in which Ryan writes, “IT WASN’T ME I WAS AT WORK IT WASN’T ME” That was followed a couple minutes later by, “I’m on the bus home now, It wasn’t me.” Then he angrily wrote, “Everyone shut the f*** up it wasn’t me.”
Later Andrew clarified, “I was neither confirming nor denying the identity of the shooter. I felt it was important to publicize those status updates. #Newtown”
Another Twitter user named Matt Bors also shared a screen cap of a Facebook conversation with Ryan Lanza in which Ryan proclaimed, “F*** you CNN it wasn’t me”
As we wrote at the top of this post, it is now believed the shooter is the younger brother, Adam Lanza. We apologize for the confusion — we were acting on the information that was available (and “confirmed”) by other news outlets at the time. This confusion happened because Ryan Lanza’s ID was found at the scene.
