She posed as the heartbroken aunt of a murdered child.

Cops accuse a 37-year-old Bronx woman of fraudulently collecting money she said would help victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, but that instead went to her pockets.

Bronx district Attorney Robert Johnson announced today that he indicted Nouel Alba for fraud and identity theft.

Cops arrested Alba this morning after a five-month investigation, officials said.

Prosecutors say Alba used Facebook to collect cash, posting photographs of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, a victim of the attack.

Alba said she was his aunt and asked for donations to help pay for his funeral, prosecutors allege.

Ultimately, she received about $240 within the week after the attack, sent to a Paypal account designated by Facebook.

Alba could face up to four years in jail.

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New York City public school principals were notified by Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott in a weekly online message that starting next school year, all schools will be required to conduct two yearly soft lockdown drills.

The program, projected for the 2013-2014 school year, is part of the DOE’s work on emergency readiness, said DOE spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.

Feinberg said many schools have already been conducting such drills.

The program Walcott announced will also involve training for school officials.

“To ensure that all principals are trained to appropriately implement these drills and procedures as well as effectively respond to emergencies, the Office of Safety and Youth Development is providing a two-hour mandatory training focused on emergency readiness during this summer,” Feinberg reported.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Adam Lanza, the man who attacked a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in December, had a large arsenal including additional guns, swords and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, according to court papers released Thursday.

The pale yellow two-story suburban Colonial house where the gunman lived with his mother was stocked with weapons before he carried out the second-deadliest school shooting on record in the United States, police who searched it after the shooting said.

Documents released after the expiration of a 90-day sealing order showed that the 20-year-old Lanza, who killed himself at the end of his rampage, had a gun safe in his room and many weapons besides the AR-15-type assault rifle and two handguns used in the Dec. 14 attack.

Police inspecting the home found an Enfield Albian bolt-action rifle, a Savage Mark II rifle, a revolver, three samurai-style swords with blades measuring up to 28 inches and a 6 foot  10 inch wood-handled pole with a blade on one side and a spear on the opposite side, according to the documents.

Connecticut officials released dozens of pages of court documents on their investigation into Lanza’s assault, which began when he shot dead his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the Newtown house. He then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, which he had once attended, shooting to death 20 first-grade children and six staff members before killing himself.

Gun violence debate

The attack, which President Barack Obama called the worst day of his presidency, reignited a fierce debate on gun violence and regulation in the United States.

The National Rifle Association came out swinging after the incident, calling on armed guards to patrol every public school in the country, while gun-control advocates called for tighter restrictions on both the process to buy guns and the types of guns and ammunition clips that may be sold.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to gun ownership.

Police found NRA certificates in the names of both Adam Lanza and his mother, according to the documents. Police found Nancy Lanza’s body in her bed with a gunshot wound to her forehead and a file on the floor nearby.

The documents were released on the same day that a group of Newtown residents planned to protest at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, less than 3 miles from the school, over the NRA’s opposition to new gun control laws. Newtown residents were enraged after receiving a slew of robo-calls on behalf of the NRA that were critical of gun control laws.

The court papers made public several details about the police search of the Lanza home.

Police found a smashed computer hard drive and a gun safe in the room they believed to be Adam Lanza’s bedroom.

FBI agents interviewed one or more people who described Lanza as “a shut-in and avid (video) gamer who plays Call of Duty amongst other games.” It was noted that Sandy Hook Elementary School was his “life.”

The search also turned up a Saiga 12 shotgun and two magazines containing 70 rounds of ammunition in the car Lanza drove to the school.

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After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School approximately two months ago, it’s hard to think of a fitting way to honor the memory of the 26 lives lost.

A New Jersey firefighters’ union figured out the perfect way to memorialize the children and teachers lost while also benefiting children in local communities.

The firefighters will build 26 playgrounds in towns that were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. The project is titled ‘The Sandy Ground: Where Angels Play.’

Each playground will be named and themed after one of the victims.

The plan is to build 10 playgrounds in New York and New Jersey each. Another six playgrounds will be built in Connecticut.

Construction for the first playground will start in Sea Bright, N.J. and will be named after the special education teacher Ann Marie Murphy.

“The residents of Sea Bright lost so much from Superstorm Sandy that something like a new playground, besides providing a safe place for our children to play, is also a symbol of hope and recovery,” Mayor Dina Long told the Wall Street Journal. “It has a far greater impact that just a nice playground.”

The park dedicated to Murphy might also include a dog run to honor the teacher’s love for dogs.

Other playgrounds will include features that commemorate each victim’s personality. For example, Jack Pinto, who loved the New York Giants, will get a football-themed playground. Catherine Hubbard’s name will be put on a Staten Island playground by the sea and Noah Posner’s playground will be in Rockaway, near his grandfather’s house.

The project will cost $2.1 million and will be spearheaded by New Jersey’s Firefighters’ Mutual Benevolent Association. Construction for the first playground will begin Mach first. To donate to the project, click here.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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The man who shot dead 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school wanted to kill more people than the 77 slain by a Norwegian man in a 2011 rampage, CBS News reported on Monday, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.

A Connecticut state police spokesman dismissed the report as inaccurate speculation.

Adam Lanza, 20, who killed himself as police closed in on him at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, saw himself in direct competition with Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting attack in Norway on July 22, 2011, CBS said. Breivik surrendered to police.

Citing two officials briefed on the Newtown investigation, CBS said Lanza targeted the elementary school because he saw it as the “easiest target” with the “largest cluster of people.”

The report did not say how the investigators learned of Lanza’s desire to compete with Breivik.

Lanza was also motivated by violent videogames and had spent numerous hours playing games and working on his computer shooting skills in a private gaming room in his basement with blacked out windows, CBS said. Investigators recovered a large number of games from the basement, the report said.

Evidence shows that in his mind, Lanza was likely acting out the fantasies of a videogame during his shooting spree with each death amounting to some kind of “score,” CBS said.

Lanza killed 20 schoolchildren aged 6 and 7 plus six adults who worked at the school, shocking the United States and leading President Barack Obama to propose new gun-control legislation.

Authorities have not publicly spoken of his motive.

“This is not official Connecticut State Police information and is someone’s speculation regarding the case,” Connecticut State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance told Reuters in an email statement.

When asked if the CBS report was in any way accurate, Vance responded, “No.”

Breivik, a self-styled warrior against Muslim immigration, killed eight people by bombing the Oslo government headquarters and then shot dead 69 people at the ruling party’s summer youth camp.

A Norwegian judge last year sentenced Breivik to the maximum 21 years in prison, though his release can be put off indefinitely should he be deemed a threat to society.

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