What happened in one of the most tragic school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School?
What happened at Sandy Hook
On December 14, 2012, in Newton, Connecticut, the tragedy began when Adam Lanza shot his mom Nancy Lanza four times in their house and proceeded to use her car to drive to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Then, shortly after 9:30 AM Lanza broke through a window by shooting it. Principal Dawn Hochsprun and school psychologist Mary Sherlach were killed by Lanza upon his entry into the school. Everyone in each classroom could hear the shooting happening over the school’s speaker. That immediately notified everyone what was happening, giving teachers time to protect their students.
The first class Lanza had entered was teacher Lauren Rousseau’s. He shot her and 14 students. Then he went to teacher Victoria Soto’s classroom, where she attempted to protect her students by hiding them in a closet. She tried to misdirect Lanza by saying that her class was in the school’s auditorium. Lanza killed her and six students who tried to escape from their hiding spot.
Additionally, two other staff members were killed and two other staff were injured. Lanza ended up killing 26 people at the school, including 20 children and six adults (Britannica). After taking innocent lives, he ended up killing himself near Soto’s classroom.
About Adam Lanza
Lanza had difficulties throughout his life. At a young age he struggled with communication and sensory issues, social interaction, and repetitive behavior. Lanza was put in a special education program in preschool, and left the program in fourth grade. And in fifth grade Lanza’s parents separated. Before, “[Lanza] was described by some as seeming happy, smiling, and participating in community and school activities,” according to an ABC News report.
After fourth grade things started escalating. Lanza started acting differently in fifth grade. He would avoid people, wash hands repeatedly, and started becoming afraid. In seventh grade Lanza had an obsession with violence such as war, battles and destruction and would write disturbing pages about it.
Lanza’s parents and school believed that Lanza was “gifted” but in reality his abilities were average when he took a psychological test. When a Yale APRN [Advanced Practice Registered Nurse] discovered Lanza had OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder], Lanza’s parents struggled to accept that Lanza had OCD.
Later on, around 2010, Lanza had gone out of contact with his father; it may have had to do with his father not supporting Lanza’s dreams. His father thought that Lanza couldn’t handle carrying a full courseload at Norwalk Community College. Lanza’s father still wanted to see him but Lanza would deny and ignore him.
Lanza and his only friend would play video games regularly. They would meet up to play video games or watch movies. When they talked Lanza would sometimes talk about his family and his worn-out relationship with his mother and about depression or mental health, but Lanza never said he was never diagnosed. They also shared an interest in mass murders and serial killers and would talk about them. They both ended up having a disagreement over a movie and stopped hanging out together in June 2012.
Sandy Hook survivors
This June, “Good Morning America” co-anchor George Stephanopoulos spoke with six of the surviving students as they graduated from high school.
Henry Terifay, who was seven years old when the shooting happened, is now 18 and has a tattoo of his friend (a victim) on his shoulder so he can stay with him every day. Terifay tries to remember all of his classmates that were killed every day. Terifay is surprised because he thought Sandy Hook would be a wake-up call for everyone, but mass shootings keep happening and all he hears is sorry from people without real action and he is tired of it.
Emma Ehrans, who is now 17 years old and was six at the time of the shooting, explains that when the shooter went into her classroom she watched her friends drop dead. One of her classmates who didn’t make it told her and other classmates to run. They ran out of the classroom and she saw bodies in the hallway and she just ran until she made it out of the school.
Matt Holden was six years old at the time of the shooting and recalled his mom crying and running up to him and he didn’t understand why she was crying and what was happening. Holden has expressed that he feels hopeless as the numbers of school shootings continue growing, and it never ends.
Ella Seaver was seven years old at the time and says it’s difficult to talk about what happened even ten years later and it feels comforting for her when she talks to the other survivors because they all have the same connection. A year after the shooting Seaver figured out she wanted to be a therapist because she has had therapy even more after the shooting and it has helped her a lot. She wants to do the same for other people who might struggle through gun violence or just struggling in general. The other survivors are planning to pursue law and politics.
Lilly Wasilnak, who was six years old at the time and is now 17, expresses her worries for her future kids because of the increase of school shootings. Wasilnak expressed, ”As unfortunate as it is, it’s going to happen to someone else, and it’s going to keep happening to someone else until people like us have to make the change,” ABC7NY reported.
