A review of police response to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School has found that officers `` responded to the scene rapidly , positioned themselves appropriately , and followed their department policy , '' according to a report by the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association . The nine-page report analyzing the Newtown Police Department 's response time and entry to the school during last December 's mass shooting was written by a subcommittee of four police chiefs from the state . `` Our evaluation showed that the officers of the Newtown Police Department navigated the inevitable chaos created in the first few minutes of such a call , managed to piece together what was occurring , but were unable to intervene before the shooter took his own life , '' according to the report , which was released Thursday . The review references a CNN report that said , `` Police and other first responders arrived on scene about 20 minutes after the first calls . '' CNN initially reported police arrived `` within 20 minutes . '' The committee had access to 911 recordings , dispatch tapes , first-responder and officer statements as well as other documentation . The committee report was released on the same week as audio recordings of 911 calls to police from the school at the time of the shootings . The December 14 , 2012 , massacre left 20 first-graders and six school employees dead . The shooter , Adam Lanza , 20 , shot himself and died in the school . Newtown Police Department Chief Michael Kehoe requested the analysis after media reports indicated the response time was greater than Kehoe knew it to be , said Jack Daly , president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association . Daly appointed the sub-committee in August . According to the report , the first call to police was at 9:35 a.m ; the first officer arrived two minutes and 41 seconds after the first radio broadcast of a shooting . The elapsed time between the first police officer 's arrival and police entry to the school was just under six minutes . The report said officers were delayed in entering the school because they faced what they considered `` exterior threats '' of a person running outside the school building . The person was detained and later identified as a parent . `` Officers are trained to prepare for more than one threat or aggressor , '' the report said . The Newtown Police Department followed their policy on `` active shooter incidents '' by confronting the shooter as quickly as possible , according to the report . `` History teaches that the typical active shooter only stops when confronted ; as a result the quicker the confrontation by police , the better , '' the report said . Lanza , who had been a student at the school years earlier , fired more than 150 shots from a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle before turning a 10mm Glock pistol on himself , according to police . `` Newtown officers were on scene a total of 1 minute and 10 seconds before the shooter committed suicide , '' the report said . The Newtown shooting is the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history , behind only the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech that left 32 people dead . After the 1999 Columbine School shooting in Colorado , where two students shot 13 people to death before killing themselves , the law enforcement practice of confronting a shooter as quickly as possible replaced a `` contain and wait '' policy . According to the report , the Newtown Police Department adopted a quick-engagement policy in April 2003 `` in keeping with current trend in police training . ''
Connecticut police chiefs ' group review Newtown police response time to shooting . It found officers ` ` responded to the shooting rapidly , positioning themselves appropriately '' The report found that officers were unable to intervene before the shooter took his own life .