8-year-old shooting survivor recalls hiding, rescue

• 'We heard shooting, screaming and crying'
• One of Malleeha's favorite teachers, Victoria Soto, was killed
• Automated call notified father of shooting

NEWTOWN, Conn. — Eight-year-old Malleeha Sabeena Ali was in her third-grade science class at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday morning when the shots rang out.

"We heard shooting, screaming and crying," Malleeha said.

Her teacher said, "Go to the carpet," and asked the children to keep quiet, Malleeha said.

She and 18 classmates huddled on the carpet at the rear of the classroom, hiding behind a bookshelf. Twenty-students from another third-grade class joined them, but not everyone kept quiet.

"One of the boys from the other class said, 'I want my mommy,' " Malleeha said.

Soon afterward, police announced themselves repeatedly at the door, prompting the teacher to unlock it and let officers inside. They led the children down the hall and out a rear door as they held hands.

"When we were still close to the school, we had to run so then we could be away from the shooter," Malleeha said.

She and her classmates escaped unharmed, but one of her former teachers, 27-year-old Victoria Soto, who teaches first grade, died in the shooting. A poster in Soto's honor was taped on the Ali family's van this afternoon at Dickinson Park in Newtown, where Malleeha was on the playground with her parents and two older sisters. Soto was one of her favorites, she said.

"We played math games a lot of times," she said. Soto's favorite colors were green and blue, Malleeha said.

"I felt a little sad when I figured out 26 people died," Malleeha said. "One of them was my principal. I felt a little angry because I didn't want shooters to come to our school."

Her father, Iftikhar Ali, 46, received an automated call from the school notifying him of the shooting and waited anxiously at work for 45 minutes before finding out his youngest daughter was OK. A neighbor had rushed down to the Sandy Hook firehouse and picked up her own daughter, along with Malleeha and several other students in her van.

"We have a very nice neighborhood," he said. "It's just a like a family."