Bryce Maksel's Mom Tells How He and Four Others Ran from Shooter

People Magazine ^ | December 21, 2012 | NICOLE WEISENSEE EGAN

[Uncle Chip]

Jen Maksel knows she's one of the lucky ones. Her 7-year-old son, Bryce, escaped last Friday's carnage by fleeing hero teacher Vicki Soto's classroom when the gunman looked away.

Last Friday morning Maksel, 42, was just drifting off to sleep after working an overnight shift then putting her kids on the bus when her phones began ringing off the hook. Before she could answer them, a neighbor began pounding on her front door yelling, "There's a school shooting at Sandy Hook!"

She jumped in her car and headed to the school.

"I parked on the side of the road and just ran to the firehouse," she says. "Most of it is a blur because I was in total panic trying to find Bryce. Bryce's friends' mothers were there, too, doing the same thing. It was total chaos. I was crying hysterically."

Her ex-husband, Steve, was there as well. They spent a harrowing three hours at the Sandy Hook firehouse waiting for word about their son's fate.

"They were lining the surviving kids up by class," says Jen, a respiratory therapist who lives in Sandy Hook. "In Bryce's class all I saw were five kids. I couldn't stop crying because Bryce wasn't one of them."

Not long afterward another mom told Jen that five kids who'd escaped were at the Newtown police station. "She said two moms found them running down the road a half mile from the school," Jen says. "She didn't know which kids they were, though."

Jen immediately called the Newtown police who told her, "We have [your son]," she recalls. "I almost passed out."

"He said [of gunman Adam Lanza], 'He looked at all of us, then he turned around toward our teacher and all five of us ran,'

[Ciexyz]

Just wow.

[Uncle Chip]

They do tell you there were Survivors in Soto’s classrom

Wow -- stop the presses!!! The Courant reports "survivors". Yeh but found IN her classroom -- IN her cabinets -- AND only 7 -- AND those 7 were the only other ones who survived, according to the Courant:

"Later, in their search for survivors, police found the remaining seven of Soto's students still hiding in the closet. " www.courant 12/15

And they were still reporting this misinformation as late as January 7th, 2013 -- three weeks later and probably still are.

Did anyone think to check their math: 6 + 7 = 13 not 16 AND 16 - 6 = 10 not 7.

And this is a Connecticut news organization -- not Alaskan. They only live a short distance from there.

Perhaps people up there should cancel their subscription to the Courant, get People Magazine instead, and start hanging around some first graders. They seem to have better information.

[jttpwalsh]

I live out west, since 1981, but delivered the New Times from the age of 10, until 16. I still read it online. Two things I don’t get. They reported a maroon van leaving the scene, with a rear window shot, or broken out, later apprehended in Danbury. Also, a male was picked up, in the nearby woods, in Sandy Hook, who was proclaiming his innocence, as he was hauled off. I never heard any follow up. I understand the early reporting is never 100% correct, but I thought at least these matters would have been explained, such as “wrong guy”, etc. It certainly lends credence to some of the conspiracy theories. Do you know anything about those items? Thanks!

[jttpwalsh]

OOPS - NewS Times ;) My Dad always called it the News Crimes.

[RummyChick]

The maroon van..same as the purple van???? with someone in a Nun outfit headed toward Danbury????

That piece of the puzzle is a key to this story and a detail that has been left out.

If you believe Veterans Today - the van was tracked to Greenwich village.

And then some are dovetailing it into this
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260189/Greenwich-Village-heroin-junkie-bomb-maker-Aaron-Greene-planned-blow-arch-Washington-Square-Park.html

It’s a stretch..but what we do know is that we haven’t heard about what happened with the mysterious purple van and/or the maroon van with the window shot out.

[RummyChick]

Btw, supposedly Gordon duff has admitted that he makes up 40% of what he puts on this website Veterans Today

[Uncle Chip]

I understand the early reporting is never 100% correct, but I thought at least these matters would have been explained, such as “wrong guy”, etc.

Seldom if ever happens. That's why they are known as the "drive by media". They fire and keep going. They don't stop to treat the wounded or call 911 or apologize for a stray bullet.

[jttpwalsh]

Thanks for the info, certainly worth noting.

[jttpwalsh]

Good point !

[berdie]

So do you think it’s possible that as time goes on and the investigation is complete we might get a good picture of what might have happened?

A friend sent me some conspiracy video. I came to FR to see what was being said.

My theory at this point...

Crazy guy couldn’t socialize. Crazy guy’s Mom home schools and protects him. Crazy guy’s Mom finally gets tired of him laying on the couch, eating Cheetos, playing video games all day and acting wierder and wierder and tells him he has to get a job, go to college or move (cause she is getting scared of him).Or as I have read, she is going to have him committed.

Crazy guy kills Mom and decides to go out in a blaze of glory.

Some folks=decide to get 15 minutes of fame.

The MSM=Viewership and putting out alot of misinformation.

The Government=Never let a crises go to waste if we can further an agenda.

[trebb]

Schools determined after Columbine that schools should be locked down when there is a threat. The plan is to keep students in place, I have never agreed with that idea. My daughters were in high school when lock down became the plan to deal with shooters, I told them if at all possible, escape, run, evade and don’t stop until well clear of the area. I just don’t see how making students sitting ducks is a good plan. I know there are many different scenarios and no one answer will fit all. Seems even though these were much younger students they decided to escape and evade and it worked out for them.

Bad practices and even DOD breaks its own program recommendations for much "contingency" stuff. Evidently Base cops are too stupid to discern between a guy shooting people and people running away so the policy is lock-down, turn off lights and cellphones, cower under any available cover, and if confronted by the shooter, holler and throw stuff at him. Can't be more stupid.

Same for Anti-terrorism actions. Per the anti-terrorism handbook, if you get a bomb threat, you evacuate and disperse so you don't have a bunch of easy targets clumped together. We have drills and everyone has to assemble in congested clumps "for accountability" (I guess it's better to risk 200 folks at a pop than to possibly lose track of a single person). The massing areas are often next to dumpsters and other handy areas where a bomb could be placed for maximum damage. No doubt that anyone who might want to do great harm on a Base knows the drills and massing areas as well as the folks who work there.

[Uncle Chip]

Hopefully an investigation will atleast separate fact from fiction regarding some things.

What I am amazed at is a Connecticut paper not clearing up its own prefabrications and and still perpetrating them a month later when they are so close to the facts that could do so.

The Hartford Courant is quoted by conspiracy videos which then use it to call Gene Rosen a liar regarding the six kids on his lawn because the numbers don’t add up: [6 + 7 + 5 + 5 = 23]

Well — take away the 7 cabinet kid narrative of the Courant and then things do add up: [6 + 7 + 5 + 5 - 7 = 16]

Lt. Vance said he was going to go after sources of misinformation in social media. Well perhaps he should start with The Hartford Courant and their source of the 7 cabinet kids narrative which he said did not come from anybody involved with the investigation.

So who came up with it and why are they pushing it when the facts say otherwise???

My suspicion is that the narrative came from the cousin of Soto to amplify her heroism with some fictional embellishment. He was all over the media with the story the day it happened telling us what transpired in her classroom before anything was released to the public.

How would her cousin know what happened in her classroom unless he spoke with the surviving students. And if he spoke with the surviving students then he would have known that they were found at the firehouse and at the police station — not in the cabinets.

Meanwhile The Courant and this cousin let Gene Rosen twist in the wind and be ridiculed by conspiracy theorists rather than step forward and admit their part in this prefabrication and clear it up.

And it doesn’t take a 6 month police investigation to do that.

[RummyChick]

The only person who saw the gunman is the Janitor.

Other than the Kids who ran from Soto’s class that claim to have seen him.

Kevin Anzellotti wrote on his Facebook page that he was off that day.

The janitor supposedly said something like Put the gun down put the gun down.

They mysterious janitor went down the hallways checked doors yelled at teachers as the gunman went on a rampage

I find this story hard to believe for a number of reasons.

Is the Janitor dead or alive???

Not one single interview with the Janitor

Not much told in any story about the Janitor

But the interesting thing is this:

The media loves a hero.

Especially one that confronted the gunman and told him to put the gun down.

Go try to find stories about the hero.

There is a story about a Janitor Rick Thorne in a Union Story

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/a-faustian-bargain-for-state-pension-plans

The curious case of the Hero Rick Thorne.

Maybe one day he will tell a tale

[Tammy8]

I agree, it doesn’t make sense to me, makes people into easy targets for sure.

[Uncle Chip]

First-grade teacher Vicki Leigh Soto, 27, lost her life as she “huddled with her children,” her cousin Jim Wiltsie told the Wall Street Journal.

She had tried to hide them in a closet, he added, and “in doing so, she put herself between the kids and the gunman’s bullets ... She was a hero for what she did.”

Wiltsie did not know if her students were among the dead.

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/lives-saved-by-teachers-custodian-and-even-children-in-connecticut-school-shooting

Hmmmm. So on December 15th this Wiltsie reports that his cousin was shot “huddled with her children” and then states that he “did not know if her students were among the dead”.

He sure was a valuable source of [mis]information.

[Uncle Chip]

Another eye witness to the kids running down past the fire house and it’s was live on camera:

http://us.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Bryce+Maksel&hspart=att&hsimp=yhs-att_001&type=att_lego_portal_home

The kids were running past the firehouse as 6 or 7 police cars were going past to the school.

Why is it the propaganistic video makers can’t find these people or their interviews???

[Uncle Chip]

The mother who saw the “8 to 10 kids” running down the road to the firehouse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTjzq0KA-nI

[berdie]

I have to admit that I haven’t followed this story as deeply as most.

But the lady in this video...is it just me or is the timeline a little confusing?

[Uncle Chip]

1] Interview with one of two mothers who witnessed the 8 to 10 kids running down to the firehouse, the Lanza’s Honda with black sweatshirts strewn on the ground and all 4 doors open [indication that it had probably already been searched], the broken plate glass window at the front door, the unusual quiet just before the final gunshots rang out from inside the school, and the kids subsequently and orderly evacuating the building:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptbd6qRY358

2] Video at 0:24 of the broken plate glass window at the front door of the school:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/18/us/connecticut-shooting-adam-lanza-barber/index.html

3] Police dispatch with video [at 0:50] of the broken plate glass window at the front door of the school:

http://www.frequency.com/video/broken-glass-at-front-of-sandy-hook/72154872/-/5-85140

4] Police Dispatch of the Sandy Hook shooting:

http://nhregister.com/articles/2012/12/14/news/doc50cc0897adc1a203744261.txt?viewmode=default

5] STATE POLICE IDENTIFY WEAPONS USED IN SANDY HOOK

http://www.ct.gov/despp/cwp/view.asp?Q=517284&A=4226

6] Details of shooting at Wikipedia with other resources and links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting

7] State Police: All 26 Newtown victims shot with the Bushmaster

http://www.ctpost.com/newtownshooting/article/State-Police-All-26-Newtown-victims-shot-with-4220548.php

8]Marilyn Gudsnuk — real Sandy Hook eye witness. Sees 2 boys in front of fire station running from the school as 7 or 8 police cars were going in opposite direction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sem3eN_z5nY

[Uncle Chip]

No — it all happened quickly. The timeline is in the police dispatch here:

http://nhregister.com/articles/2012/12/14/news/doc50cc0897adc1a203744261.txt?viewmode=default

Where the kids and mothers fit in is probably here:

9:35 The first shots were probably fired followed by 911 calls to the police.
9:36 Police are dispatched to the school.
9:38 Shooting continues for about 3 minutes during which most of the damage was done.
9:38~ It would have been right about at this time that the 10 kids in Soto’s room made a break for it.
9:39 Police arrive at the school and chase a guy into the woods while others probably search the car, discover the broken glass window, and begin to enter the front door.
9:40 Police find the bodies of the principal and psychologist by the front entrance.
9:40~ It would have been right about this time that the mothers would have spotted the kids running down the road to the firehouse as they drove up to the school.
9:42~ It would have been right about this time that the two mothers are at the front door of the school.
9:46 Shooter fires final shots and kills himself.