<p>The father I know who’s daughter died, knew before Malloy’s annoucement.</p>
<p>DocT, I am sure every parent in that room “knew”… 
When a whole class and a half of kids who would have been together don’t come back for that long… Or are you saying he had heard specifically from someone (a first responder on the side or someone who had been inside and gotten out)?</p>
<p>I’m not sure. When he left work, he knew his kid was missing. He left work when reports were just coming out and that started with just a few kids killed and potentially more than 1 killer. Another guy left work around the same time and he knew his kids were safe. The one with the dead child hasn’t been back to work yet of course so I’m not going to find out anything. I certainly wouldn’t ask the question when he comes back.</p>
<p>I don’t really see the point of analyzing what the governor or others did right or wrong. They were dealing with a tragedy of unprecedented magnitude. Imagine having been one of the first responders in the building. Imagine being the medical examiner. I am sure they all did their very best under the circumstances. I don’t think any amount of training could prepare anyone to tell 35-40 parents of first graders that their kids were brutally murdered in their classrooms.</p>
<p>I know the priest stayed with the families all day, and I believe the rabbi and minister did too. There are no good enough words of compassion.</p>
<p>During the night, CNN had an interview with a young man who survived the shooting at the CA Jewish day school. He said he and others have never been the same. He did not want to go away for college, needed to be near his parents. He said this was true for others.</p>
<p>That is a whole part of the tragedy that bears thinking about. Even the children who survived will carry this with them forever. They will be victimized for the rest of their lives by the psychological trauma that it has caused them. Especially those that narrowly escaped and those that witnessed the carnage. The parents of the murdered children will not only be dealing with their own grief and that of their other children, but will be dealing with PTSD as well. The weight of it is enormous and my heart breaks for them.</p>
<p>^I know. And I think of the loss of innocence for all the kids–both those who survived the shooting as well as those who were in Brownies/Cub Scouts, soccer, dance class, and so on with the victims. My kids have fortunately never known a child who died. Many of the kids in the Newtown community will know several. Six and seven year olds should not have to understand grief and loss.</p>
<p>That’s one of the first things I thought of that awful Friday - that the “fortunate” children will be “only” scarred for life. </p>
<p>The effects of this tragedy will affect many people for the rest of their lives. I had an odd thought last night. One of the teachers who was killed was a “permanent substitute.” I’m not sure what that means, but I believe that it means replacing a teacher who is on maternity leave or another kind of leave. If this young woman replaced a teacher who is on leave, think of the “survivor’s guilt” that teacher must feel.</p>
<p>I gather that most of the children who were killed were in one of two first-grade classrooms. One of the teachers was Victoria Soto, and she managed to hide some of her children and died with the others. A small group of children managed to escape from one of the classrooms and ran away from the school. Does anyone know what happened in the other classroom?</p>
<p>Re: the governor. According to news reports and his own retelling of that scene (in response to a reporter’s question), he knew that police protocol was to only notify families of a death once there was positive ID of the body. He felt it would be cruel to let those families sit at the firehouse waiting for that confirmation when everybody knew that those who hadn’t been reunited with their children would never be reunited with their children. That was when he made the decision to tell the families.</p>
<p>One class (I’m assuming Lauren Rousseau’s) had one child left. The newspaper couldn’t say if the child survived the massacre or was just absent that day. Either way, can you imagine how awful it will be for this child to return to school with nobody left from his/her class. Every effort is being made to replicate the children’s classrooms at Sandy Hook at their new school, but for those surviving first graders nothing will be the same.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add that Governor Malloy is not a terribly charismatic man (which I think will affect his aspirations for higher office) and has a good measure of that New England reserve that can come off as coldness. My first thought when I saw him on the scene that day at the press conference was that the reporters are going to be hoping for a Clinton-esque “I feel your pain” kind of guy, and they aren’t going to get one. But I think his actions do not deserve any criticism.</p>
<p>H and I were discussing whether we would feel compelled to move away from Newtown if we had small children, and that led to a discussion of whether the town will forever be tainted as a place to raise a family. I wonder if Columbine became a less desirable place to live in the years after the massacre. If you could choose a similar place without such awful associations, wouldn’t you? I think it will take 25 years or more before the word “Newtown” can be spoken without raising the memory of this horror.</p>
<p>It was a terrible scene in that firehouse after the governor’s announcement and many of the families felt and continue to feel it was poorly handled. </p>
<p>However, I agree that the families should not have been kept waiting. And I think it was likely the governor, not known for being a source of emotional comfort to his constituents, was in shock along with everyone else. </p>
<p>But I disagree that Malloy didn’t deserve the <em>initial</em> criticism (not a political comment - to the contrary). In the moments that they will remember forever, IMO families were entitled to a more compassionate approach. Another interview:</p>
<p>[Conn</a>. Gov. Malloy talks about telling families of tragedy - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57559697/conn-gov-malloy-talks-about-telling-families-of-tragedy/]Conn”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57559697/conn-gov-malloy-talks-about-telling-families-of-tragedy/)</p>
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<p>There is really zero point in dwelling on this, though. The governor seems to have stepped up in this area in the difficult days that followed.</p>
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<p>It may help that Newtown is a less distinctive name than Columbine. It may also help that there’s another community with a similar name (Newton, Massachusetts) not too far away. Even the name Sandy Hook is fairly common. It’s a beach in New Jersey, among other things (or at least it was, before Hurricane Sandy).</p>
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This will carry on for years … at each level of school this grade will be short 20 kids. I do not know how school are structured in Newton but the elementary school may well be dealing with a grade with no kids or 1 class while all the other grades have 2 classes … the tradegy will be in the face of the schools and the kids for years.</p>
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<p>I hear criticism… but I have certainly not seen any suggestions in the media or here of a better way to handle it. For heaven’s sake… there is NO possible way to break that news that could be compassionate or kind or… whatever. I think in this situation the emotions are so raw, and people so much want to find something to lash out at, that it could contribute to their comments about it afterwards. Would they really like to have waited longer? Have someone else (the police chief) make an announcement instead? Say different words (“Your family members are deceased”)? Make them identify the bodies one family at a time? Take them into the school? Wait until the crime scene was processed and the bodies were removed a day or so later? There just is no compassionate way to deliver this message, and no one in the world would have wanted that job on that day.</p>
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<p>This has haunted me. Apparently, most, if not all, did not get to view the bodies. I heard a radio interview with the father of one of the teachers and he said that the families were told they could not see them. The destruction of the bodies was such that no one should have had to view the horrific damage. How terrible to have your child gone without being able to hold them one last time. </p>
<p>I have felt such sympathy, also, for the medical examiner personnel and all of those employees at the funeral homes. What a terrible week it’s been for them, too.</p>
<p>I would not have known the most compassionate way to have broken the news, and I don’t know what the exact moment was when it was clear that those left in the room were all the parents of the dead children. Some children did escape and were at a neighbor’s home. One ran out after having pretended to be shot, and her mother scooped her up and left. It was pandemonium there with some parents leaving very quickly with their children. My heart goes out to all of the children, parents and responders there. </p>
<p>Also, the adults in the school who were shot probably did not get the attention that the children did. I don’t know when they knew which school personale were shot, killed. </p>
<p>I agree that there is no good way to give this kind of news. Each family was assigned a police officer, I understand. Counseling is also available, and clergy was called to the scene of various denominations.</p>
<p>I suspect the media doesn’t feel it serves any productive purpose to dwell on this - neither do I. But a simple " I’m so very sorry to have to inform you…" would have at least put some human emotion and a sense of empathy into it and should have been the bare minimum. Private notification, along with support from counselors, would have been ideal, but for whatever reason they decided that was not feasible. </p>
<p>Malloy’s comments were supposedly delivered with no emotion and came across more like a transportation department briefing describing conflicting train schedules than what it was. But he was in shock too, and not particularly well equipped for the horrible task at hand.</p>
<p>After the bodies were positively identified, about 10:30pm that night, clergy from nearby towns were called to the firehouse. They met with the police and counselors and then, after about 1 hour, accompanied the police to each and every home of the victims and officially notified the families.</p>
<p>Trying to imagine how “private notification” would work… so you are all in a room, and they call one family at a time out to another room. Out of hearing? Do they go out a separate entrance after the news, or come back with the other parents? Do they work their way through the room alphabetically? How do the parents who are last or nearly last feel about this? </p>
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<p>I suspect I would deliver in the same way. It would be the ONLY way I could get through the sentences that would need to be said. When you give a eulogy or speech at a memorial service, honestly, you have time to prepare, to parse and practice your words. This is just a guy getting up and doing the best he can to give the families there the same information he had. I can’t imagine living in a community where a protocol, speech, etc. HAD been decided upon ahead of time because something like this was anticipated. I suppose if I were a governor, I might be considering this going forward. :(</p>
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<p>There was a story in the Hartford Courant this morning about the local funeral director, and the help received from his colleagues. It was absolutely heartbreaking.</p>
<p>[Funeral</a> Chief In Newtown Looks Back On A Week of Crisis and Support - Courant.com](<a href=“http://www.courant.com/business/hc-haar-funeral-directors-sandy-hook-newtown-shoot-20121222,0,6663763.column]Funeral”>http://www.courant.com/business/hc-haar-funeral-directors-sandy-hook-newtown-shoot-20121222,0,6663763.column)</p>