Sandy Hook
Elementary: A Tragedy We Will Never Forget
On Friday, December 14th,
2012, a catastrophic event in a small town of Connecticut, colored the nation
with devastation. A total of 20 young children and six innocent adults were
murdered at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. This tragedy is now the
second deadliest school shooting in US history and was reported throughout news
stations and across the globe. From the moment the first responders were on the
scene, news reports have covered every aspect of this story, and will continue report
and develop well into the future as a result of the momentum this event has created
in gun law reform. This paper will explore the ways this story has adapted and
evolved through time in the media.
Every major news establishment in
the nation covered the incidence. Among those that were the first to
communicate details about that horrible day was CNN. One of their first published stories on the event included the
brief testimony of a parent inside the school at the time but not much else. The
information had come from a woman who had concealed herself under a counter and
immediately alerted the police after she heard the first gunshots. Many other
news stations picked up this story as well, speculating on the death toll and
the status of the shooter. **The next day, CNN
was able to give a description of what the shooter was wearing, how many people
had died, and a short history of the town. The article explained that this
tragedy was bound to leave a huge wake in this small, close-knit community that
had only had one homicide reported in the last ten years (Candiotti and
Aarthun) .
The article described that the shooter, Adam Lanza, was “heavily armed” and
dressed in “black fatigues” but could not yet specify on the types of guns he
used or his motivation for the attack. Saturday, December 15th, an
article also came out in The Economist
that declared that Adam Lanza’s mother was found killed in her home in Newtown
as well, supposedly killed by her son before he travelled to the elementary
school and later killed himself as police was closing in on him.
Students and faculty regarding the
events of that day have given testimonies and eyewitness reports to numerous
news agencies. The Economist cites a
nine-year old boy who was in the school’s gym during the time of the shooting;
he said, “We were in the gym and heard loud bangs” (R.W.) . The student
explains that they hid in the gym’s closet and waited for police to escort them
out hours after. Later stories also indicated that students reportedly heard
screams and gunshots over the intercom at the start of Adam Lanza’s rampage
that sent a surge of terror through each person in the building that day. One
other student who spoke with reporters said, “I saw bullets going past,” before
he and another student were pulled into a classroom by a teacher who protected
them during the attack. A few days after the shooting, stories of heroic
teachers began to emerge into the public media sphere as well. On December 17th,
three days after the shooting, Matt Lauer on the Today Show interviewed three courageous teachers from Sandy Hook
Elementary that exemplified that heroism. Connie Sullivan, a third grade
teacher continuously told her terrified students “that they were loved, that
their mommies and daddies would be there soon” (Sullivan, Feda and Vollmer) . In her
interview, one can clearly see how much she deeply cares for her students and
the pride she had in them for supporting each other throughout the terrible event.
The week following the shooting, NBC News began to address the issue of
gun laws because many of the victims continue to feel a responsibility to protect
other innocent families from awful events like this one. In his address to the
nation on the day of the attack, President Barak Obama also opened the doors to
a on-going debate regarding the control of guns across the country. He said,
“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the last few years” (School shooting: President
Obama’s remarks on the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Conn. (Transcript)) , alluding to recent events in
Wisconsin, Colorado and Virginia. About two weeks after the shooting, John
Rosenthal wrote in the Huffington Post
“We Are to Blame for the Sandy Hook
Elementary School Massacre” (Rosenthal) . He claims
that, as citizens of the US we should take more responsibility for the laws our
Congressmen are passing, and each person needs to take an active role in
preventing future attacks like this. Even pro-gun rights advocates have begun
to reevaluate the ease of access that citizens have to assault rifles within
the US. Regardless of the proposed laws’ potential to prevent attacks like
Sandy Hook, change in gun laws will still decrease a high number of gun-related
deaths each year. However, an article in U.S.
News states, “Some also suggest that other issues aside from guns should be
the forefront of the national debate in the wake of the tragedy, including
violence in video games and access to mental healthcare in America” (Did the Sandy Hook Shooting Prove the Need for More Gun Control?) . Regardless
of what side a person is on in this on-going debate, the media has played a
huge role in causing people to act on the current laws. Gun control debates are
still continuing today.
Several weeks after the shooting, an
article in the Wall Street Journal explored
the reasons and motivation behind Adam Lanza’s attack. The article indicates that
a contributing factor to his behavior was a snowballing affect of severe social
isolation from all family and friends besides his mother, with whom he lived.
It was reported that she took him to shooting ranges in order to bond with him
and it was her guns that he used to kill her in her bed that morning and at
Sandy Hook Elementary. However, his anti-social behavior is also proving to be troublesome
in fully investigating the last few years of his life before December (Audi, Kesling and Shallwani) . Further
investigation into Adam Lanza indicates that he felt he was in a direct
competition with Anders Behring Breivik who was responsible for brutally
murdering 77 people near Oslo, Norway in 2011. Lanza is said to have believed
Sandy Hook to be the easiest target with a concentrated group of people in
order to more efficiently kill a larger number of people in his effort to
challenge Breivik’s heinous record (Payne) .
Since the shooting, many news
sources including the Wall Street Journal
and CNN have dedicated interactive webpages that pay tribute to each victim
with a photo and brief profile written by his or her loved ones. Media has
played an important role in giving a face and a name to each victim that makes
it much harder for everyone to separate himself or herself from this terrible
event. News sources function as a call to action for people to begin a
much-needed change within the country. We must remember that there were more
than 27 victims that day. This was also an incredibly traumatizing experience
for the other 400 plus students and staff at Sandy Hook in addition to the
family and friends of those that were killed. The community will take time to
heal.
News stations and sites divulge
information about current events as it becomes available. With events like the
mass murder-suicide at Sand Hook Elementary School in December 2012, we can see
these events play out at an hourly rate. The story has and will continue to
transform and progress over time, as new information is uncovered. The evolution
of this story includes the accounts and reports of policemen on the scene to
the overwhelming support for the families of victims and even to the heated
debates on gun control as a result of the attack. Reports of the event on
December 14th will continue until the official investigation is completed,
likely in the summer of 2013.
Works Cited
Audi, Tamara,
Ben Kesling and Pervaiz Shallwani. "School Gunman's Downward
Spiral." 22 December 2012. The
Wall Street Journal. 28 February 2013
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324731304578193890
846892734.html>.
Candiotti, Susan and Sarah Aarthun. Police: 20 children
among 26 victims of
Connecticut School Shooting. 15 December
2012. 25 February 2013
<http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/us/connecticut-school-
shooting/index.html?iref=allsearch>.
"Did the Sandy Hook Shooting Prove the Need for More
Gun Control?" U.S. News. 27
February 2013
<http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/did-the-sandy-hook-
shooting-prove-the-need-for-more-gun-control>.
Payne, Ed. Report: Sandy Hook shootertried to emulate
Norway massacre. 19
February 2013. 26 February 2013
<http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/19/justice/connecticut-newtown-
shooting/index.html>.
R.W. Democracy in America. 15 December 2012. 25
February 2013
<http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/12/guns-
america>.
Rosenthal, John. "We Are to Blame for the Sandy Hook
Elementary School
Massacre." 28 December 2012. Huffington
Post. 26 February 2013
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rosenthal/united-states-gun-
violence_b_2375393.html>.
"School shooting: President Obama’s remarks on the
shooting at Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
(Transcript)." 14 December 2012. The
Washington Post. 26 February
2013
<http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-
14/politics/35846745_1_parent-children-transcript>.
Sullivan, Connie, Kris Feda and Janet Vollmer. Sandy Hook
teacher told students
'they were loved' Matt Lauer.
17 December 2012.
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