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| A mourner leaves the funeral service of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim, Jack Pinto, 6, Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. Pinto was killed when a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children. |
NEWTOWN, Conn.
(AP) -- Opening a long and almost unbearable procession of grief,
Newtown began laying its dead to rest Monday, holding funerals for two
6-year-old boys - one a football fan who was buried in a New York Giants
jersey and one whose twin sister survived the rampage.
Two
funeral homes filled with mourners for Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, the
first of the 20 children killed in last week's school massacre to
receive funerals. The gunman also killed six adults at Sandy Hook
Elementary, and his mother in her home, before committing suicide.
A
rabbi presided at Noah's service, and in keeping with Jewish tradition,
the boy was laid to rest in a simple brown wooden casket with a Star of
David on it.
"If Noah had not been taken from
us, he would have become a great man. He would been a wonderful husband
and a loving father," Noah's uncle, Alexis Haller, told mourners,
according to remarks he provided to The Associated Press. Both services
were closed to the news media.
Noah's twin,
Arielle, who was assigned to a different classroom, survived the killing
frenzy by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, an attack so horrifying that
authorities could not say three days later whether the school would ever
reopen.
Newtown, a community of 27,000
people, will face many more funerals over the next few days, just as
other towns are getting ready for the holidays.
"I
feel like we have to get back to normal, but I don't know if there is
normal anymore," said Kim Camputo, mother of two children, 5 and 10, who
attend a different school. "I'll definitely be dropping them off and
picking them up myself for a while."
Beyond
Newtown, parents nervously sent their children back to class in a
country deeply shaken by the attack, and in a measure of how the tragedy
has put people on edge, schools were locked down in at least four
places.
As investigators worked to figure out
what drove Lanza to lash out with such fury - and why he singled out the
school - federal agents said he had fired guns at shooting ranges over
the past several years but there was no evidence he did so recently as
practice for the rampage.
At Jack's Christian
service, hymns rang out from inside the funeral home, where the boy lay
in an open casket in the Giants' star wide receiver Victor Cruz's No. 80
jersey. Jack was among the youngest members of a youth wrestling
association in Newtown, and dozens of little boys turned up at the
service in gray Newtown Wrestling T-shirts.
Ten-year-old
Luke Wellman remembered a boy who loved football and wrestling and
worshipped Cruz, who played in Sunday's game with "Jack Pinto `My Hero'"
written on one of his cleats.
Luke said: "I'm here to support my teammate and friend."
A
mourner, Gwendolyn Glover, said the service carried a message of
comfort and protection, particularly for other children. "The message
was: You're secure now. The worst is over," she said.
At
Noah's funeral, the boy was described a smart, funny and mischievous
child who loved animals, Mario Brothers video games and tacos.
"I
will miss your forceful and purposeful little steps stomping through
our house. I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark
blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in
this room," his mother, Veronique Pozner, told mourners, according to
Haller.
"Most of all, I will miss your visions
of your future. You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory
manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure
that the world kept producing tacos," she said, evoking laughter from
the crowd.
She closed by saying: "Momma loves you, little man."
At
both funeral homes, as around the country, people wrestled with what
steps could and should be taken to prevent something like the massacre
from happening again.
"If people want to go
hunting, a single-shot rifle does the job, and that does the job to
protect your home, too. If you need more than that, I don't know what to
say," Ray DiStephan said outside Noah's funeral.
He
added: "I don't want to see my kids go to schools that become
maximum-security fortresses. That's not the world I want to live in, and
that's not the world I want to raise them in."
Around
the country, school systems asked police departments to increase
patrols Monday and sent messages to parents outlining safety procedures.
Teachers steeled themselves for their students' questions and fears.
Richard
Cantlupe, an American history teacher at Westglades Middle School in
Parkland, Fla., described the Connecticut rampage as "our 9/11 for
schoolteachers."
Anxiety ran high enough in
Ridgefield, Conn., about 20 miles from Newtown, that officials ordered a
lockdown at schools after a person deemed suspicious was seen at a
train station. Two schools were locked down in South Burlington, Vt.,
because of an unspecified threat.
Three
schools in the Tampa, Fla., area did the same after a bullet was found
on the floor of a school bus, and a New Hampshire high school went into
emergency mode after an administrator heard a loud bang. A police search
found nothing suspicious.
Meanwhile, the
outlines of a national debate on gun control began to take shape. At the
White House, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a
complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution."
Carney
did not offer specific proposals or a timeline. He said President
Barack Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and mental health
professionals in coming weeks.
Lanza is
believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version
of the military's M-16. It is similar to the weapon used in a recent
shopping mall shooting in Oregon and other deadly attacks around the
U.S. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in this country under the 1994
assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.
At
least one senator, Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia, said Monday that
the attack in Newtown has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban
on assault weapons.
West Virginia Sen. Joe
Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the
National Rifle Association, said it is time to move beyond the political
rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions
on guns.
He added: "This is bigger than just
about guns. It's about how we treat people with mental illness, how we
intervene, how we get them the care they need, how we protect our
schools. It's just so sad."
Authorities say
Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their home and then took her car
and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A
Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at
shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times
in the head with a .22-caliber rifle.
Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drag utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.
Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the rampage.
Debora
Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at
shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together. "We do not have any
indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities
in the past six months," Seifert told the AP.
In
Newtown, classes were canceled Monday, and the town's other schools
were to reopen Tuesday. The district made plans to send surviving Sandy
Hook students to a former middle school in the neighboring town of
Monroe.
Sandy Hook desks are being taken to
the Chalk Hill school in Monroe, empty since town schools consolidated
last year, and tradesmen are donating their services to get the school
ready within a matter of days.
"These are innocent children that need to be put on the right path again," Monroe police Lt. Brian McCauley said.
With
Sandy Hook Elementary still designated a crime scene, state police Lt.
Paul Vance said it could be months before police turn the school back
over to the district. The people of Newtown were not ready to address
its future.
"We're just now getting ready to
talk to our son about who was killed," said Robert Licata, the father of
a student who escaped harm during the shooting. "He's not even there
yet."
