Gov: Newtown gets state's full support

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- The governor of Connecticut said Sunday his state was providing extensive support to Newtown in the wake of last week's school shootings.

Gov. Dan Malloy said the state was supplying whatever resources it could to Newtown, a community of about 27,500 people with a small police force that suddenly had a horrific crime on its hands.

A total of 26 people were killed, including 20 school children, by a heavily armed, 20-year-old gunman when he stormed the Shady Hook Elementary School after killing his mother at the home they shared. The shooter, Adam Lanza, also killed himself.

"There will be a great number of funerals," Malloy said. "We have assets ready, state troopers, other police departments, anything they need."

Malloy said the longer-term needs in Newtown included repairing the bullet-riddled school and looking statewide at better ways to intervene with families and individuals caught up in mental-health problems. "I think our country needs to step it up quite a bit in that regard," he said. "We need to reach out to families that are in crisis."