Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

If there’s a signature photograph to emerge out of today’s horrific school shooting in Connecticut, it’s this one.

Beyond the news value of these children being led safely away from the scene in emergency formation, it’s not hard to tell why. Mainly, it’s because of the heart breaking expression of the girl in the center of the picture in the turquoise shirt. Whereas the other children remained focused on the task at hand, this poor girl looks completely traumatize and emotionally distraught.

As well though, there’s the sense of this single file as almost a line of prisoners, not just because of law enforcement but by the way the boy second-in-line is being led by the police woman with his hands captured crossed just-so. That’s only relevant, however, to the extent it felt today — given the year’s, and the season’s number of gun rampages — like Americans have become hostages to a culture of violence.

(photo: Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks/AP caption: Connecticut State Police lead children from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., following a reported shooting there Friday.)