Newtown: An American Tragedy (28 page)

New York state passed a sweeping law banning high-capacity magazines, and requiring assault weapons to be registered within the state, including those already owned by residents. All gun buyers must undergo background checks, except transactions among immediate family members. The new law also bans the sale of all assault weapons on the Internet and requires mental health professionals
who believe a patient might be a danger to society to report that information to a health care director, who must then relay what they determine to be serious threats to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services.

Still, despite the setbacks, the families remain determined to push forward through the long haul. Those who are part of Sandy Hook Promise believe they have the resolve needed for a fight that they envision might take several years, or even decades. “We know this isn’t a sprint. It is a marathon and we intend on keeping this conversation going for as long as it takes. We know it is not going to be easy, but we are a very determined group of people,” said Mark Barden.

“I made a promise to Dylan after he died that I would do whatever was in my power to make sure that something like this never happens again,” said Nicole Hockley. “I am going to state and local legislators for common sense legislation. There need to be background checks. There need to be magazine limits. There is no need for thirty rounds.

“America has a lot of guns. It always will. No one is going to take those away. All I am asking for is some common sense,” Hockley added. “This isn’t about politics for me. It is about a promise I made to my son and it is a promise I intend on keeping to prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening again.”

T
wenty days after the shooting, on Thursday, January 3, 2013, the students from Sandy Hook Elementary finally went back to school. Along the way to their new school in nearby Monroe County, students saw handmade greetings and bouquets of balloons in the Sandy Hook green-and-white colors. In the prior week, contractors had been working around the clock to make Chalk Hill Middle School look familiar. When students walked in, they saw the desks arranged in the same patterns and the same posters on the wall.

They were also greeted with a massive police presence. Every car entering the school grounds had to go through a police checkpoint and the driver had to show identification. Bomb-smelling dogs roamed the playground.

On June 21, 2013, the start-of-summer tradition began as yellow school buses departed Chalk Hill Middle School flying colored streamers from their windows, marking the last day of an unimaginably
painful school year. While the familiar sights and sounds of joy typical of the last day of school were all around, for Newtown this summer break would be unlike any other. There were the twenty first-graders who wouldn’t be making that last bus ride. There were the five educators who wouldn’t be packing up their classrooms. Their beloved principal, Dawn Hochsprung, wouldn’t be waving to them, but her legacy was scrawled across a school bus window in the form of her favorite words of wisdom: “Be nice to each other. It’s really all that matters.”

T
he media had left town long ago, moving on to the next big story, finally giving residents some space to embark on the beginning stages of trying to heal from the precious loss of life, and from the shattered image of a town that had lost its identity to tragedy. For the interconnected web of families, a new normalcy began to take hold. For families with post-traumatic stress disorder, that new normal often means sleepless nights and extra hugs, and lots of counseling.

The family of Carrie Battaglia, including her two children who survived the shooting, is only now beginning to understand the emotional damage inflicted on that day. “My daughter heard everything. She heard the shooting, the pleading, crying, everything,” said Battaglia, referring to the sounds coming from Victoria Soto’s classroom next door. “You can’t undo that.

“She was sure she was going to die,” her mother added. “She did not want to die before Christmas.”

Her six-year-old daughter now suffers from PTSD. Loud noises frighten her, and in her dreams she often relives that horrible day.
“She’s afraid to go to sleep. She has nightmares every night, usually that she is in the school and something is trying to get her, to kill her.”

The school day isn’t much better. If there is a loud noise, her daughter puts her hands over her ears. The high school provided counselors in the days and weeks afterward. Therapy dogs were brought in, too, but still she is struggling to live a normal life. “If she hears a loud noise she sometimes withdraws. The teachers have to soothe her back,” said Battaglia.

Her eight-year-old daughter, a third-grader at the school, has also been affected by the morning of December 14. “Her friends lost their brothers and sisters. She knows she almost lost her sister,” said Battaglia. “She has been having a very hard time.”

Still, both girls are making progress through regular visits to a trauma specialist at their new school and, in time, their mother hopes the nightmares will end.

F
or parents, the mental anguish of that day has also had a long-lasting impact beyond what anyone could have expected. Barbara Sibley, who was standing at the school’s front door when the shooting began and dove for cover behind a Dumpster, randomly breaks down in tears.

“I always thought post-traumatic stress disorder was for soldiers coming back from war,” Barbara said. “It took me a while to accept that I could have it.”

It was days before Barbara could shake the chill that entered her body on that December morning. As she gave her account to the
FBI, her husband, Rob, had to keep draping her with heavy blankets, to no avail. She couldn’t get warm.

The next week at a local cafe where she was to meet with a coworker to discuss an upcoming project, she began to experience a panic attack for the first time in her life. “I couldn’t function. I felt paralyzed,” she recalled.

When her eight-year-old son, Daniel, a third-grader inside Teri Alves’s classroom, came home, she remembered him acting normal. Months later, he still suffers from nightmares.

After entering the school, Barbara’s husband, Rob, an EMT for the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company, who entered the school looking for survivors, still doesn’t feel comfortable talking about what he saw that day. “Our lives, our family, will never be the same. Every day it’s a new challenge and we have to keep moving forward,” Barbara said.

L
ocally, they are known as “the rebels.” The eleven children who survived Victoria Soto’s classroom after witnessing the death of their teacher and fellow students will have their own emotional needs as they try to move forward. All have received counseling and several have shown symptoms of severe PTSD. “They are all on the path to healing, but it’s been a struggle to say the least,” said a class parent in touch with the families.

For the first responders who entered those two classrooms, those images will be with them for the rest of their lives. Several EMTs couldn’t go back to work, instead choosing to resign from their jobs. Many were treated for PTSD.

Eric Brown, a lawyer for the union that represents the forty-five members of the Newtown Police Department, believes up to fifteen town police officers who were in that building were in need of medical attention. “We are very concerned about the post-traumatic stress syndrome. For many of these officers, this will be with them for the remainder of their careers,” said Brown.

In the days and weeks following December 14, in attempting to deal with the trauma many officers exhausted their holiday time and paid sick leave. For some, the time off wasn’t enough to deal with what they had experienced inside the school. “They were forced to go back to work because they have mouths to feed and mortgages to pay,” said Brown. One officer decided he wasn’t coming back at all, choosing instead to retire.

No one knows what the future holds for these cops, but that day has in many ways defined them. “A lot of these officers are still running on adrenaline. We just don’t know what the long-term effects are going to be. These officers aren’t the same people today that they were when they woke up on the morning of December fourteenth. That day has become part of who they are now,” said Brown.

For everyone affected by the tragedy, the road to recovery may just be beginning. Karen Binder-Brynes, a psychologist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder and has worked with families in Newtown, as well as first responders following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, believes that for many the real problems are just beginning to set in. “As time goes by the shock begins to wear off and the permanence of the event just starts to set in and that’s when we see the true damage,” she said.

In children the signs of PTSD are usually easy to spot. “You
have to watch for nonverbal signs that something might be wrong. If your child is experiencing stomachaches, social behavioral changes, or losing interest in things that they were previously interested in, these are signs,” Binder-Byrnes explained.

Each child deals with trauma in a very personal way, but often when a child doesn’t outwardly express the pain it could lead to further problems, according to Binder-Brynes. “I’m more concerned about the children who experienced the trauma but are holding it in,” she said. “They need to have an outlet. The more you can see the distress the more you can react to it.

“It is a very complicated syndrome that has an effect on the biology as well as the psychology. A large portion of these people may never get back to normal, but with proper treatment and time there will be better days ahead.”

M
embers of the clergy are also having trouble moving forward. Many have been under tremendous pressure, as they carry the burden of their parishioners’ pain while not paying enough attention to their own grief. Months after the tragedy, the basement at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church is still full of unopened packages and boxes. The staff had been working diligently to go through all the donations, with postmaster stamps from all around the world, but the sheer amount had proved overwhelming.

“The outpouring of generosity we have seen from around the world is really touching,” Father Weiss said.

Seven months removed, Pastor Bob, as he is affectionately known around Newtown, still can’t sleep. He has large bags underneath
his eyes that betray his easy smile. He is having problems functioning from day to day, but pushes on because he feels he must.

“These families are in so much pain,” said Weiss, who has nine families in his parish who lost a child that day. He presided over eight of their funerals in the week following the shooting. He has blocked out much of that day. All that remain are flashes of memories: A little girl calling out his name while sticking her finger through his belt loop as he paced around the firehouse. Driving through the back roads of Newtown at 11 
P.M
. in a squad car on the way to console the families after receiving final verification that their loved ones were gone. An SUV coming to an abrupt stop in the church parking lot and a dozen out-of-town college kids walking into the church at 3
A.M.
to pray the rosary on the morning of December 15.

People looking to him for comfort often ask how something like this can happen in their community. Pastor Bob doesn’t have an easy answer, but he believes that as a culture we have strayed from our roots and hopes that the community, and maybe the nation, can use this tragedy to pull closer together. “We have become a culture of death. There is less and less respect for life and the dignity that every person has because we are created by God. There are all these calls for change and new laws but that is not enough.

“Change happens within each one of us and we need to change this attitude that is driving us away from everything that is right and good, everything God intended us to be in this world. We’ve become too busy for family, too busy for friends, even too busy for God. It’s about time that we remember what’s really important in life.”

In the months that followed the shooting, Father Weiss hasn’t been able to take any time off for himself. “The community needs me but I’m struggling, too,” he admits, wiping tears from his eyes.

T
he most painful imprint of all has been left by the children who are never coming back. For these families the pain will never go away.

“Every time there’s an event, like the last day of school, it hurts,” said Neil Heslin, who lost his son, Jesse. “You keep waiting for it to get easier but it never does.”

In Sandy Hook, there is no escaping the agony of that day. Painful reminders are on every light pole, storefront window, and car bumper. Nicole Hockley, who lost her eight-year-old son, Dylan, can’t ever escape it. “Every new detail is painful. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by where I haven’t had to relive it.”

Hockley hasn’t stopped moving since the day her son’s life was taken. She is driven to do everything in her power to make sure no other parent has to endure the pain she feels. “Nothing will bring Dylan back. I know that. We try to live from one moment until the next,” said Hockley.