Inside the Horror: A Comprehensive Look at Sandy Hook | Real Crime

[Music] thank you everybody for being here today on this year anniversary actually it's uh right about exactly now that that tragedy occurred at sandy hook elementary and 27 people became angels [Music] on december the 14th 2012 gunman adam lanza entered an elementary school and shot dead 20 children and six teachers we heard every single bullet we heard people crying we heard actually the people's death himself with the shooter going back and forth make sure he gets all the kids she proudly got you know into maybe more than one piece maybe in multiple pieces maybe she was not recognizable jesse was brutally shot and murdered while he was in his class and i'll think is that could that possibly be true [Music] [Music] that morning you know neal pulls up i walk jesse out as i usually do and then i remember turning around and seeing that jesse had written on my car i love you with little hearts etched in the windows and the frost i was so present that i thought oh my that is just this is a moment this is one of those moments you need to capture it and he had these goofy teeth in that you really can't tell in the picture because it's overexposed and jesse loved these goofy teeth he wore them all the time not just on halloween and then i just took him you know hugged him said have a great day i'll see you tomorrow night and off he went with his dad on the morning of december the 14th families across newtown in connecticut sent their children to sandy hook elementary school started like any other day where i had breakfast with the kids got daniel on the bus came back up to the house and then for whatever reason it occurred to me i'm like oh daniel forgot his library book so i kissed the kids and picked up the book and drove to sandy hook [Music] i went to work as usual and this instant message popped up there's been a shooting at a school in newtown and i was like kind of like hmm i i didn't think that it was real lauren russo was a teacher at the school that morning her father jeal was at home my brother called me and said there was a shooting in his school in newtown he didn't know which one and then we turned on the television and we found out the little tip or take you know on the bottom of the screen say you know shooting in newtown somebody got shot in the foot so then i walked from my car to the front entrance to the building and then at that moment i heard the firing of a gun and the the shots being fired and it was deafening it was overwhelming it was right there i mean it was so close and it was like i there was no thinking involved there was it was just uh just run run as fast as you can away [Music] and it wasn't until i i ran and was hiding that i you know that that i had that thought that oh my god you know you know you know daniel's in there [Music] always indicating she thinks there's someone shooting in the building on the radio i was hearing things from the dispatch because my rate there's a radio in my truck and it was you know send everybody in the dispatcher sort of saying what do you mean send everybody and the police you know just saying said everyone and said anyone that's around [Music] i think i woke up to a text message from a friend of mine saying that there was like a school shooting and then watching the news even at that moment i was like oh lauren's fine you know don't worry about it just you know played it off fine so i i kept having people call with just little bits of information i found out that a teacher was shot in the foot before i got to the school and i thought well it's it's a situation with a boyfriend you know a jealous boyfriend came shot the teacher in the foot which is horrible but you know we'll just go and pick up jesse he'll probably need to be consoled i'm sure it was a scary situation the phone was ringing at that point and it was barb and she said rob i'm here and i said i'm going to a scene you know that sort of thing and the best i can remember the conversation was she says i know i'm at the school and i and she says i'm hiding and i thought you're hiding under a desk and i saw my words you were you know we'll stay low and i'll be there soon um and you said something to the effect of make sure the twins are okay to the to the effect of like i won't be coming out of this so you take care of the kids i have this vivid vivid memory of thinking to myself my son is in that building and um and just like wanting to go get him and i had this other thought of i have two children at home and so there was this this uh you know dilemma i remember this do i do i do i run inside and get daniel or do i stay alive you know for the children i have at home the train station's moving [Music] i don't want to die [Applause] when i arrived thinking that my wife was no longer with us um you know i saw her escorted by the police across the parking lot so i was the first person who kind of had that that relief knowing that a family member was okay [Music] and then saw daniel i knew that my family that day was complete [Music] it was just a huge relief to see daniel coming out of the building um not many people know this uh only i think a few of the moms and dads and kids who were there knew this was that the speaker was on at the time so could you hear stuff when the speaker was open oh yeah yeah like that well um let's just say it was real harsh there was we heard every single bullet we heard people crying we heard actually the people's death themselves it was real harsh i won't get into too many details um because well let's just say that most of my feelings i usually keep to myself and um now that's happened not many people just talk there's still shooting going on please all right get everybody you can going down there and i ran to the firehouse knowing from people that had um been calling me that the parents were supposed to meet at the firehouse so i knew that it's law in school they don't know if lauren is alive or not and it's just like big chaos so i'm i'm seeing you know happy reunions and i'm just looking for jessie's head and the sea of people and kids you know coming in and i don't see them but i'm not particularly panicked the day progressed you know first two three hours i was like oh you know she's fine i'm sure she just has to [Music] you know go through procedure talk to people you know she was there i'm sure she couldn't contact us immediately so i'm walking around to any official looking person that's standing in the firehouse and i'm saying have you seen my son jesse lewis i i can't find him after the first wave of kids came out like you said maybe about 10 classes the police shut it down and said wait a minute there may be more people out here we need to protect and make sure the scene is safe so i started walking up towards the school and this big guy with grenades strapped to his belt and a probably an ak-47 or something over his shoulder said i'm sorry i can't let you through and i said well i'm just looking for my son and he's not at the firehouse so i'm thinking he's at the school and i'm gonna go get him and he's like we're not letting anybody in there we're sweeping the school he said the kids are hiding and i thought oh of course you know jesse protector jesse he's uh hiding somewhere and and it's gonna take him hours to find him because he's so resourceful you know at that point they were saying like around three o'clock three four o'clock they're like you know it's not looking too good i was actually pretty pissed off i was like how could you say that i don't think my brain was fully functioning in in uh in a cognitive sort of way right then and uh there was a doctor that i guess he was a doctor that walked up to us and he knelt on one knee and just said there's no easy way to say this your son's dead so i just turned thank you turned from him and jt and i just huddled i had to work that evening i bartended with another bartender that night when i got to work you know i still still was high hopes i still thought she was going to be okay i texted her around you know a little earlier saying you know texas back learning you know mom's freaking out around like 8 30 i was able to get out of work that when i was i was freaking out it kind of hit me out of nowhere and one o'clock in the morning there was i hear a knock on the door downstairs in my studio and i knew what it was my brother met me in the kitchen he goes did you hear i said what so the lord passed away adam lanza entered the classroom and started shooting um and killed ms soto jesse's beloved teacher um [Music] and uh jesse was standing a little in front into the side of her and uh his gun ran out of bullets so there was a delay a few second delay where i guess he had his magazines taped together and he had to take it out and change it and jesse during that delay called to his friends who were standing on the other side of the room to run and the survivor the surviving kid said that it was because jesse called out that they ran then the shooter reloaded his gun and shot jesse and then started i guess killed whoever else was in the room it's a laptop not a computer they're both the same thing i've never really had something more scary happen to me in my life it pretty much was a time of fear when i say fear i mean like fear no one's really accepted it that's kind of odd believe me so can you explain what happened [Music] i think i'm just going to keep that to myself that day to have run from that awesome responsibility of protecting him you know it's shameful does that bother you sometimes like it's a betrayal you know a little i don't think it's a rational thought and i i don't think that daniel would ever see it that way but there's a little part of me that when i think about 1214 in the context of his experience there's always part of me that is begging his forgiveness but he'll he'll forgive me for being human and running the majority of those who died today were children beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old [Music] among the fallen were also teachers men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams so our hearts are broken today [Music] so almost a year after the massacre those who lost loved ones are trying to find ways of moving forward with their lives [Music] i have felt pain every single day several times a day sometimes excruciating i've been curled up in a little ball i have my moments and i've tried to limit them too when i'm sitting on the bench in front of his tombstone and i let myself cry what's that um it's a mess that's pretty cool yeah i don't want it see siri with the mask i do it's cool a social worker had come to the house and had bent down at my knee and put her hand on my leg and really sincerely said i know how you're feeling because i lost my son and i said oh that's that's just horrible and she said and i'm here to tell you that the pain will never get better you will never feel any better than you're feeling right now and this was i think less than a week maybe a week after jesse had died and i just said stop right there you know that is absolutely not going to be you know my my journey that's yours but but i don't want to place that limitation on mine my journey is going to be my own i made a decision right there okay this is going to be what i make it and i'm not going to make it that and that was that was really it was interesting because sometimes these terrible experiences are your best teachers and and she was a great teacher for me because it made me realize that i did have the choice to make this journey my own and and i made it right there all right these things can you move them downstairs please well downstairs in the basement yeah it's dirty these are new socks dirt gets on socks the socks get dirty we're making great strides great strides nice careful that box is very heavy oh my god now you tell me this i'm pretty strong i think but 11 months and as far as um getting back i guess what i'm saying to a normal life like we have to find and navigate a new normal remy stop you can't eat the chickens no i'm sorry i know you're like why not dude are you kidding me you can't beg either whenever we go to the movies uh we play the duck machine with the claw it goes you pick up the duck and somehow i get really good at jamming the machine so that they just keep going you can win unlimited stuff you could do that with the duck yeah i don't know just kept breaking every time really yeah so we won all these there you put the dollar in and you had to win but it never ended you were done king that was awesome and jesse walked away with like 20 ducks yeah every time yeah that was really nice you know i almost immediately got rid of his bunk beds because he never used them and my friend needed them so i didn't really have an attachment that was hard to do but i found a treasure underneath which was unwashed pajamas so that was good he like he had little plastic soldiers and he liked to play those with me like set up forts and put the army guys together and everything all 10 000 of them i mean these are his famous army boots that i had no idea they were so worn out look at that and he still wore them the boots he's buried in were just like this this is actually his candy from halloween 2012. i don't know what to do with it i can't throw it out show me how you make a snow angel okay [Music] even in a country used to school shootings many people believed the sandy hook massacre would be a turning point in america's relationship with guns president obama put forward two new gun control bills but 12 months later neither bill has been passed by congress lauren russo's two brothers matthew and andrew have come to the capital to attend a service for all victims of gun violence and focus attention on the issue one year after the sandy hook shootings the americans still live with an epidemic of gun violence that is claimed an additional estimated 32 000 lives since last december 14th so as we gather in d.c we'll be letting congress know that we're a little disappointed that nothing can be said for this one year of my sister being dead and her her classroom of children being dead lauren never touched a gun and she had no experience whatsoever with gun violence before that day i wish you could say that for all the children in america 32 000 deaths i mean how can you put that on the news that would be news dedicated to that gun deaths and nobody wants to see that nobody wants to see the reality in it if you haven't done anything you must think what we have is okay is there a higher number of people you want to see dead before we do anything we'll be handing out christmas cards i don't know if there'll be any lawmakers there we'll also be talking to the press and showing our presence there how you doing today we're all here from the new town foundation to join us for people affected by gun violence tomorrow around 3 45 we're doing a national uh visual for all gun violence victims you guys would like to join or the congressman fantastical pass along thank you very much thank you for your time today i i don't know how my sister would have taken it if it was my brother i would have been i know much much worse for her so yeah she would be doing much more i think actually that's just that type of person [Music] good afternoon my name is jill russo my daughter lauren was the 30 year old teacher at sandy hook we know that the grief we all living is share by all the families affected my dad it's he's coping with this stuff much differently than i am at least you know took me over a year you know 366 days for me to actually talk to anybody really about it but you know my dad is obviously finding some sort of healing in it so you know it's great for him to find some healing we are here today with the common goal of remembering all loved ones acts of kindness and efforts to promote just cause are the best way to keep the memory of the victim of gun violence alive i could take the majority of my life to try to understand it i went to therapy for a while after and uh didn't like to talk about it i've got no one that takes it all in and just you know sits there depressed or sad but stay strong mentally at the same time but trying to battle those twos can be tough sometimes very tough but she was just really as loving as it gets you know every time i came home it was it's a big hug she was so short and the person was about 13 inches taller than her two so it was always such a a small body hug i did love those hugs what do you think of stuff like that it's to stop the thing you'll never get it again [Music] shortly after the tragedy rumors started to circulate on the internet that the whole event had been staged to justify greater gun control you guys want a sandwich or some soup oh no it was within the first three weeks that we got our first phone call at the fire department you know saying that you know these are actors and and the individual the officer that answered the phone was so it was so taken aback it was almost it was almost a moment where he said no we're not actors and no what are you talking about you know and you know fine whatever and hung up on them and he kind of looked at us there's a bunch of the officers all sitting around and he says somebody just called and said we faked the whole thing daniel's mother barbara felt compelled to speak out i needed to get the message out that this really happened and and meantime i looked at my phone and all you know these messages had been left by the producer from katie couric and and i asked rob he said yes let's do it but rob and barbara were unprepared for the public reaction to their appearance on the abc network's katie couric chat show i started scrolling through the comments and the best way i can describe how i felt as i read these comments of people who had the luxury of hiding behind their computer screens was i felt like i was being raped at some point if you search my name it says that i'm i'm an actor and in other ones it says that i'm special operations mine just says liar underneath my picture i tried to imagine who were these people who would say such things and oh my god how lucky they are you know how nice it must be how blissfully ignorant it must be to not experience what everyone around us has experienced how wonderful for them you know how fantastic that they don't have to live what we live every day good for them good for [ __ ] them that they can do that you know i don't have that luxury but good for them this crazy person called up and said he he's gonna do the same thing that happened to sandy hook elementary he's gonna do the same thing at first it's kind of scary but it's just life what people are going into schools with guns well it's going to happen once in a while i know it's a bad thing but every place has those times when they get shot and stuff and not saying that's a good thing or anything but just there's always those times where it's just gonna happen there are at least thousands over millions of schools who have experienced this just happens to be that we that we had more people killed and it was in elementary school you have these conversations that you don't ever imagine having with your own child the the other day stevie was having some issues with kind of sleeping and and just calming down a little bit i guess and um i asked him i just said stevie is everything okay you know you're doing all right there bud and um he looks up at me and he goes you know it's a good thing you're not dead right mom and i i said well what do you mean honey and he said well the bad man who came to my school he goes it's a good thing he didn't get you and i said you're right honey it's a good thing he didn't get me but he's dead now and he can't hurt anybody else and he said well i'm in first grade at sandy hook school now is it my turn to die i said no baby it's not your turn to die you know nobody is coming again to do what that man did you're safe and you're safe at school and you're safe at home and you'll be okay um and the sad thing is i you know there's no guarantee you know thank you everybody for being here today on this year anniversary actually it's uh right about exactly now that that tragedy occurred at sandy hook elementary [Music] i just want to say what heroes both of my boys are jesse heroically trying to save nine kids from that classroom and jt taking his personal tragedy and turning it into something tangible that has actually changed people's lives and will continue to do that so proud of both of them they're both my heroes and i can only hope to fulfill my purpose on earth as bravely as as they have fulfilled theirs i really do feel like jessie's behind me in this and pushing me along the way it was pretty early on i saw that message on the chalkboard phonetically spelled um in in in six-year-old handwriting nurturing healing and love and i knew that he had written it shortly before he died i started a journal so we worked from the journal and the book came about and it seems that it is being received as it was intended trying to cultivate healing in a nation and and get jesse's message out which i do believe to be [Music] [Applause] [Music] profound how does it feel like to hold this book in your hands i really set out to make this personal tragedy a tragedy of many people into something that is going to help the world be a better and safer place i believe that december 14th was the greatest day of compassion the world has ever known and the two choices that we all make are living our lives in faith or living our lives in fear right you may not consciously as well as writing a book scarlett has also set up a foundation in her son's memory [Music] she is being powered by such a strong message that there's no way that you can run out of energy on something like that she's also been invited to the white house to talk about social and emotional learning in schools and to seek better funding for the kind of mental health projects that she feels might have helped the gunman adam lanza hi kay hi i have jt here with me too we want to talk to you about new town helps rwanda since his brother's death jt has found a new focus as well i'm raising money so that i can send rwandan genocide victims to college for four years i'm selling bracelets and getting donations i didn't like talking about what happened i can't just sit in a room and tell someone who has no credentials to me so i just i didn't feel like i could talk to anyone about it i skyped with the rwandans they reached out to me because he heard what happened in my hometown and they wanted to help me get through it they told me what it was like for them to go through the genocide that they went through i didn't want to skype for them i just figured it would be another one of these therapists or be another person who just wants to talk and help but um it turned out to be very good together scarlett and jt are also taking jesse's message into prisons in the hope that they might reach some of the most potentially violent men in society a lot of people had jumped on the anti-gun which is great but in my mind that's a symptom of a fearful society right and i thought what what really started this this tragedy was an angry thought at some point in adam lanza's head that escalated this angry thought in this little boy's head that he didn't have the tools or the nurturing environment to handle right so anger feels bad and so at some point he did what a lot of us do and i still sometimes do we blame someone right because i'm sure everybody in here has somebody who you know hurt you terribly it's just a choice to forgive them it's just a choice then it's a process the way i was brought up in the streets let's say you were to hurt one of my friends or somebody that i love my first thought is going to get you hurting you right back my question to you is like how do you do how do you tell yourself like you know you know it's okay if i wanted to hurt someone because they hurt me then when does it stop then you hurt someone and they hurt someone and you're in this negative revolving thing that doesn't end i've been living in fear because of the life i chose but if you can if you was able to cope with losing a son i can do it i have the same murderous thoughts sometimes i'm not above that but i i have the same choice and the same will power and determination that you guys have you guys have it within you you just have to access it and maybe even know that it's there and that you have that choice a lot of people have that fear of interacting with individuals who have lived this type of lifestyle been exposed to guns and violence and and i mean for you to come in that's life changing right there i mean that's just that's awesome i don't judge you i don't judge you guys for having guns because you live in a fearful world you know what i mean and you feel like you need those for protection i don't judge you for that i just want you to choose love instead of revenge it amazed me in the discussion we had how many people just because of your story and your message were rethinking the behaviors they've done and not just rethinking the behaviors they've done but literally coming up and saying maybe i'm not going to behave this way going forward and and i thought that was one of the most powerful things because some of us in here have legitimate streetcar credentials and these are people who you you may be saved lives literally multiple lives and i think just your message and you coming here before you got here you had done that now with you being here we're already thinking something in our lives and i want to thank you for that as well you guys are my choose love movement ambassadors if you want to be seriously you know i mean that's what i want that's my goal i think that guns are a symptom of a greater problem that we have um i think if we took away every gun out there we could not take away the fear associated with wanting a gun and so i believe that we need to deal with the fearfulness that's in our society and and in in when we do that we create a new society that doesn't need guns [Music] when you are out there on your own the surest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun you know it [Music] my goal is to prevent gun violence our children deserve a safer world stay out of our homes and stay the hell out of our gun cabinets because this freedom is not for sale national rifle association lobbyists helped to defeat both of president obama's gun control bills they resisted new background checks on gun owners and limiting the number of bullets in gun magazines gil russo has come to the nra convention to find out why you own a gun for your protection or do you go hunting i own several guns several guns for protection mainly for for my protection i'm not a hunter my husband hunts i do for your protection and how do you think you're going to protect yourself if there was a break-in in the house if i i would do everything in my power shield to stop the threats yes and how would you do that if i needed to stop the threat with a firearm i am more than willing to do and how many americans strongly strongly believe that our constitution affords all americans the right to bear arms and there is a very strong belief that the citizenry having arms is in fact one of the checks and balances of a government getting out of balance these i would call check guns okay i mean i was not an anti-gun advocate i'm still not an anti-gun advocate passing this this little teeny lower law how to control who owns guns i don't think it's asking for very much uh but i'm told by pro-gun people unless you you give an inch and then the next thing they will come and take your guns away so that's why they were doing not want to give anything away right now coming to the gun show was one of the things that i want to experience my wife said you sure you want to go there i say yeah i don't want to feel the unknown now that i know all this gun stuff and i speak to people like you would you know it makes it much easier to understand the gun culture when the horrible incident in connecticut happened it's a very human reaction to one to want to legislate something to prevent it from ever happening again i think the size of the magazine is is just an easy way to find something that you can take exception to but in a real world situation where your adrenaline's flowing you're fighting to save your life if i only have five shots and i haven't been able to make them work and that individual is coming at me he's already there and i'm in trouble if i am able to have more that i can use to save myself i am far better off to have more because you shoot till you stop the threat you don't necessarily shoot to kill you shoot to stop the threat and if i can't do it well with the first few god bless america give me the back up five because i may need it i may need it adam lanza was a little skinny little guy he was a little man and he carried that in with another one plus a pistol and like they said it's not i mean the diameter of the bullet is the same in position 22. yeah lauren's car in the parking lot maybe three four hundred feet away had three bullets going through a car oh they'll 22 can penetrate a car for most people the respect that they give it is no different than the respect they give to driving a car both a car and a gun kill people yeah when someone gets in a car accident it's not normal to blame the car when someone was drinking and driving we don't blame the car or the alcohol we look at what's happening with the person and i think firearms are a tool they're a tool for our freedom they're a tool for our personal protection a tool for hunting sport heritage and it's awkward to me to blame the tool uh for what happened when there was someone holding that tool and misusing that tool it's just very it's just like a car you can customize it to the nth degree you know for speed for accuracy for every day when i go to work i work with the poorest of the poor in our community those referred by child welfare and probation most of them come with the baggage and the mental health issues that is profound and most often the help is is inadequate the resources that i have are so ridiculously limited with what these people need and when i'm trying to bring them to like a hospital for more care or a facility to help them detox from drugs they're they're turned away or as soon as their insurance runout runs out whether it's government insurance or otherwise suddenly they're healed even if 12 hours before they were suicidal well the insurance won't keep paying so now they get to go home even if they just threatened to kill me and three other people oh you get to go these mass killings really began to occur within the last couple of decades so the guns have been there what's changed is something in our society about seven pounds [Music] [Music] have you had to change what you're allowed to play in the house oh yes very much nerf guns that we were going to get for christmas um had to be xd off lists um slingshots i guess the slingshot i was going to get from the easter bunny i couldn't handle the idea that one of my sons would enjoy shooting a weapon after you know what i'd seen and heard and experienced and you know and i just i couldn't have it in my house okay i'll help you brian okay then i'll control your vibe no no no no don't no i said don't control it it was on the one pickaxe i accidentally put it okay wow i loathe the easy access to guns in our society i loathe the violence i have to remember that i'm raising boys who will in the blink of an eye become men in our society and regardless of what happens with gun legislation and regardless of whether that access is tightened or loosened they are going to be participating in a society that accepts guns as as part of its culture and was i helping them or hurting them by shielding them so strongly from any vestige of gunness that they clearly were interested in particularly stevie this past year they had two full-time police officers at the entrance of the school itself what saddens me is that for my twins especially they won't really ever remember anything different you know this is this is how for them this is how school should be a police checkpoint armed policemen at the at the door clicking doors identifying yourself every single time badges it's you know something is lost in that process and i don't think we'll know what's been lost until much much later i was still a part of it so it touches me but not as hard as i think the people who are related to the people who died [Music] so this doesn't mean that nothing has happened to me i'm completely fine it doesn't mean that all it means is just that we're still the people who we were we've just sort of had now an experience that um that makes us change this sort of way i just think that sandy hook is a great town and it'll always be a great town it's just a bit different because of what happened dot all these features are here and then we start putting it all together this weekend is all about jesse's playground where the sandy ground project decided to dedicate a playground for each of the lives lost at sandy hook elementary okay good morning everyone welcome to the sandyground project where angels play and the 20th playground in our beautiful quest to honor all the beautiful children and teachers from sandy hook and rebuild our [Music] coastline this is something that i have learned throughout my year and a quarter since jesse's death and this rings true in every single way for me it's a quote by don huxbrum sandy hook elementary principal another hero of that day and she says be nice to each other it's really all that matters and i want everyone to hold that in their heart because it's true [Music] [Applause] i'm still sad but like working through it the key for me is moving on so that you can be happy but never forget came home from my grandmother's and uh on the edge of the bed i saw a piece of graphic paper from a little notepad and uh it was folded up so i grabbed it and opened it not really thinking much of it and it said have a lot of fun finding the message have a lot of fun in my room after jesse died is the most important thing to me because he uh he is the hero in the situation and if he thinks that that's what to do then it's what to do [Music] do you can see their little tunnels yeah you can see all the little tunnels [Music] hey bite did you get britney yet no luckily i've been through two different places a lot of people think that you're just sad for two straight years and there's never a moment of normalcy you know it's just terrible for years you know there's always good moments where i'm in the middle of doing something and i think of lauren and it makes me smile as opposed to making me sad at that moment the only thing that makes me upset is like when we have kids mm-hmm yeah no just so they won't be able to ever see her mm-hmm yeah i'll miss i'll miss her more than yeah you have your own kids yeah when they don't have an aunt when they should have yeah yeah i am discouraged the legislation has been passed yet but i'm not i don't think it's not gonna happen as obama has told me and my parents it takes time for politics to catch up to the people it's an issue that people care about now and they care about more than they did two years ago so that's a big change no i haven't seen this before although none of the federal laws lauren's family have been campaigning for have passed at state level there has been change with 21 states strengthening gun laws since the massacre [Music] ironically i'm always putting up soldiers here in little rows like jesse had them and now instead of him doing it i'm doing it by joining others campaigning to address the root causes of violence scarlet has also seen change the government has put an extra hundred million dollars into mental health treatment particularly for young people [Music] you always hear people talking about well if you can get closure then you can move on is that something is closure something you can have that's a great question i'm not sure maybe the answer is on an individual basis i guess i'm trying to think of my own situation so the shooter's dead his mother's dead his father has left his work and is going to spend the rest of his life determining if the diagnosis is right i think that's what i heard [Music] you know i've started a foundation jt has started a fundraising effort we're moving forward in a positive way i guess that's as good of closure as you can get but you never have closure [Music] in the death of your loved one because you will always miss them and that loss is always with you [Music] and so in that in that case there is no closure on grief so you you move forward the best way that you know how um you try to take your event you try to find meaning in your suffering you try to be a good example for people and you try to change the world and make it a better place and and i guess that's as good as it gets [Music]

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 1,966,086

Keywords: real crime, crime documentary, true crime, full documentary, full episode, sandy hook, sandy hook mass shooting, mass shooting in usa, mass shooting documentary, sandy hook mass shooting documentary, obama sandy hook, obama mass shooting speech, documentary, full length documentary, real stories, real stories documentary channel, sandy hook elementary school, connecticut children, children tragedy, connecticut school shooting, sandy hook elementary

Id: 2W0n44W0Ki0

Length: 58min 14sec (3494 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021