I left work on Friday, listening to the Principal of the high school asking us for a moment of silence for the victims, 20 children and 7 adults bodies riddled with bullets from a young man obviously mentally ill using semi-auto weapons at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Ct.
My fingers froze on the computer, but it wasn't until I got home and researched the shooting did I realized the magnitude of what had happened at the school.
I kept looking for updates on the internet like so many in the nation hearing, seeing and reading about the horrific tragedy.
The 20 children ages 6 and 7 in a in first grade massacred along with the school principal, psychologist, and the others all teachers some beginning their careers, while two nearing retirement age 7 all women.
And the perpetrator age 20, believed to have killed his mother first at their home located in an upper-class Newtown neighborhood used her car to transport himself and his weapons to the elementary school where his mother may have worked. Nancy Lanza got custody of her son Adam Lanza after parents divorced in 2009. There is another sibling Ryan Lanza that mistakenly was blamed as the perpetrator of one of the worst massacres in an elementary school in the United States.
Mrs. Lanza got to keep the estate on 3 acres of land along with child support settlements starting at $10, 000 monthly to increase to over $13,000 at another period in later years.
The father is a tax expert, a VP of a company, and adjunct professor in taxes at a college in Massachusetts. Mrs. Lanza has been profile as a teacher aide, school volunteer, and substitute teacher, though NYTimes article cited superintendent of the district saying there wasn't any connection. Mrs. Lanza dressed classy, a nice person, while one report said she was rigid.
Mother Jones Magazine featured a store in a video where she shopped, the customers and merchants describing her as a happy person. Adam was portrayed in some news reports as very bright, an honors student, socially awkward with a disability specifically autism and home school because of battles Mrs. Lanza had with school officials.
It was eerie to read how the children he shot were his own age, 6 years old when a similar massacre occurred at the Columbine High School. And the youths involved in the shootings wore similar clothing a "black battle fatigues and a military vest,"and weapons as though he was mimicking them.
The reports of why this young man committed this horrific crime on 20 innocent children and 7 adult women at Sandy Hook Elementary School still are being updated on the internet, but mental illness and school safety certainly are going to be part of the dialogue because Lanza shot his way into a school with a security system that was supposed to be designed to prevent what had happened , while the state of mental illnesses supports has not improved for young people since Columbine.
Mass Shootings: Maybe What We Need Is a Better Mental-Health Policy | Mother Jones
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