Hero teacher saved 15 children during Connecticut school shooting

Newtown - A music teacher at the Connecticut elementary school where a gunman went on a Friday shooting rampage is being hailed as a hero after she saved 15 children by herding them in a closet and barricaded the classroom door as the shooter tried to get inside.

Sandy Hook Elementary School teacher Maryrose Kristopik is being lauded for her heroism after she saved 15 children from certain death by ushering them into a closet and barricading the door to her classroom as gunman Adam Lanza hammered on the door and repeatedly shouted "Let me in!" "I want to thank her. She saved their lives," said one unnamed mother in her 40s whose 9-year-old son was saved by Kristopik's act of heroism. But, she said, "now I have to explain to my 9-year-old that his friends won't be coming back. How am I supposed to do that?" Mom Brenda Lebinski told the Daily Mail that Kristopik saved her 8-year-old daughter too. "My daughter's teacher is a hero," Lebinski said. "She locked all the kids in a closet and that saved their lives." Adam Lanza, 20, went on a shooting rampage at the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school where his mother worked this morning, killing her, the school principal and at least 20 children. Lanza, whose motive is not yet known, was reportedly killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.