Episode 43 - The Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

0:15 Welcome everybody to the second episode for the week of two

0:18 crime besties. Yay.

0:19 How are you getting two of us? I know 2 episodes in a week.

0:23 This is to make up for the fact that we missed a couple of weeks

0:26 unintentionally, so bonus for everyone.

0:29 You know what? It's a bonus for me.

0:30 I could spend the time with you. That's.

0:32 It right back at ya, right back at you.

0:34 We're actually after we finish recording today, where are we

0:38 going? We're going away on a weekend

0:40 for the girls. Yay girls.

0:43 Weekend away our lovely friends Marissa, Caitlin and Haley and

0:48 shout out yes massive shout out to them.

0:51 I am excited for a nice weekend. Few drinks, few oysters and not

0:57 for you and we're going to have a great time that's.

1:00 Going to be so good yeah no, it's just yay and the weather's

1:06 looking not too bad like it's. Cold like it's the The season

1:10 has definitely shifted. The season's shifted.

1:12 Yeah, but it's it's, you know, beach with a nice coat like.

1:16 Yeah. It's, you know, like it's not.

1:18 Freezing. It's going to be sunny, but

1:20 cool, yeah. I think I'm drinking myself.

1:22 I think that's, I think, I think anywhere there's wine drinking

1:25 with. But yeah, we'll go with it.

1:28 We'll go with it. Totally happy for some sunshine,

1:31 yeah? You can have your oysters.

1:33 Yep, you can have your bread and butter or whatever come,

1:36 whatever comes with it. I don't know.

1:38 I'm not a jail. I'm just trying to think like

1:42 what else comes out at like that's the first thing that came

1:46 to my head. What would you order instead?

1:49 Oh, maybe some olives or something.

1:51 Oh yeah, OK. Like yeah, Oh yeah, maybe some

1:55 bread. I.

1:57 Wasn't that far off then. So what else goes to the

2:01 champagne? Am I going to be made to eat an

2:03 oyster? Oh, you should try 1.

2:05 I don't. Know if I can do it?

2:06 You've never tried one before? No, I've no snotball.

2:10 They're not though, aren't they? Like certainly look it, do you

2:13 actually chew them or do you just swallow?

2:15 You kind of. No, no, I think I chew them.

2:19 I actually don't know what I do. I think I do.

2:22 Yeah. No, I think I chew them.

2:24 OK. I think I'm just trying to think

2:28 now. At Christmas time, we went over

2:31 to my in laws for lunch one one of the days and my father in

2:36 law's like, oh, I went to wherever some market, some

2:39 seafood market and I bought everyone oysters and I was like

2:42 bloody beauty. Like this is fantastic.

2:45 Anyway, he literally bought us a dozen oysters each a.

2:49 Dozen each, each a dozen. A dozen.

2:52 That's a lot. It was a lot of oysters.

2:54 And then also by the end of that, because they're quite.

2:56 Rich Yeah, right. So by the end of that, I was

2:59 like, I actually don't feel like eating like the really nice rest

3:01 of the meal that he'd prepared because he's an amazing cool.

3:04 Oh wow, that's what. Peter gets it.

3:06 Is it? Yeah.

3:07 OK, yeah, yeah, Frank's a Frank's a really good cook, but

3:11 yeah, I then I was like, oh, now I don't know that I'm gonna be

3:13 able to enjoy the other delicious.

3:15 Department, sorry. Credit where credit's due, I

3:20 suppose. No, No.

3:21 Good. Brisket.

3:22 Do you wanna hear a funny story actually about the brisket?

3:25 Oh, so you know my 40th is coming up.

3:28 I know we've mentioned this so many times, but I will be

3:30 mentioned. Again.

3:31 Yeah. I was really undecided about

3:34 what to do. So tossing up what, where do I

3:36 go? What do I do anyway?

3:38 Lots of different reasons, but I'm like, you know what?

3:40 I'm actually gonna have it at home.

3:42 The the venues that I was looking at were either not

3:45 available when I wanted them to be because my birthday's in the

3:48 middle of winter. So like some of the places don't

3:50 hold functions over winter like the warehousey type places.

3:53 Stuff, Yeah. And then the place that I wanted

3:56 to have it had an absolute cap of 50.

3:59 You couldn't have more than 50 people.

4:00 And I was like, well, even my bare minimum guest list is more

4:05 than 50. Yeah.

4:06 So I'm like, oh, what do I do? Anyway, decided to have it home.

4:09 I was talking to my girlfriend Michelle, about it and just

4:12 telling her, you know, this is what I've decided to do.

4:15 And she's like, oh, that sounds absolutely fantastic.

4:18 Can't wait. Just make make sure Peter

4:20 doesn't get in his head that he's going to be cooking a

4:22 brisket for it. And I was like, oh, there is

4:27 absolutely no way he is cooking a brisket because like, Can you

4:30 imagine? Like I want this to be a nice

4:32 affair and I don't want a big hunk of meat and also the mess

4:35 that goes with it. Don't even get me started on

4:37 that because. Sort of situation as much as

4:39 like the meat can be really great, but it's yeah.

4:41 It's it's an ordeal. It's not and it's it's a mess

4:43 and that's not the vibe I'm going for.

4:45 I'm not going for brisket. So it's giving brisket.

4:52 So anyway, I didn't even tell Peter about this conversation

4:56 with Michelle, just sort of got on with it.

4:58 Anyway, we were lying in bed the other night, and he's like, oh,

5:00 I actually had a bit of an idea about your birthday.

5:02 And I was like, oh, yeah. And just before that, I'd said

5:04 to him, I want to buy a ninja slushy and make frozen

5:07 margaritas. And he was like, absolutely.

5:09 And he was like, yeah, yeah, great idea.

5:10 Cool. And then he's like, I've had

5:12 this great idea. I'm like, oh, what is it?

5:14 And I thought it'd be along the lines of, like, I don't know,

5:16 another cocktail we can have or something like that.

5:19 He's like, I'm thinking, hear me out here, God, I'm gonna make a

5:24 brief and I'm like, no, you're not.

5:29 That's a hard no for me. I'm like, I don't really think

5:35 you're getting the vibe of what I'm going.

5:36 For yeah. So yeah.

5:40 Love. Love that he wanted to, you

5:42 know? Yeah.

5:43 Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate the, you know, the

5:46 want to go to effort, but I'm sure there'll be a million other

5:49 things I can make him do. On the day there will be a list

5:52 and mom's length long for Peter to do prior because you

5:55 shouldn't be doing. Anything.

5:56 No, that's right. No, no, absolutely.

5:58 Don't see it. Yeah.

5:59 So anyway, that's where we're. At love him.

6:01 Before we get started today, I do have a shout out for Laura

6:06 Evanes, I think is her surname. She sent us a really lovely

6:09 message, damned us a really lovely message.

6:11 And yeah, just very complimentary.

6:13 And she'd only just discovered the podcast and she reckoned she

6:15 was almost up to date. Wow.

6:18 I'm guessing you're here today on Thursday when we've released

6:21 this. Yeah, you'd want.

6:22 Oh, I love that let. Us know if you are actually.

6:24 Yes, yeah, that would be great. Oh God, I love that.

6:27 Yeah. But that's the thing.

6:28 I think because we had the two weeks off, so many people have

6:30 caught up. Yeah.

6:32 Which, you know, sorry, but you know, that's.

6:34 It's so cool. Like, 'cause the numbers that

6:35 have been ticking over of, you know, previous episodes have

6:39 been absolutely solid lately. So everyone is going back and

6:41 watching and listening and say watching and listening because

6:44 people are watching Gross who are watching how it's really

6:46 scary. I know we do the video thing,

6:48 but it's really just sort of like.

6:50 It's a secondary. I mean, yeah, look, primarily

6:52 podcasting is an audio meeting. Yeah, thank God.

6:55 Yes, we definitely have faces for radio.

6:57 Oh for sure, for sure. Some days more so than others.

7:01 The fact that we pull out some makeup every time we do this,

7:03 that's. Right, really annoying.

7:04 I, I look back on our first videos where we thought, oh,

7:06 there's no one gonna be watching.

7:07 We don't even put makeup on or anything.

7:09 Now we're like, oh, at least we need to slap something on the

7:11 Facebook when we get going. We need to Start learning how to

7:14 do contouring and. I need to do like a makeup

7:16 tutorial or something. I'm down for it.

7:18 I've never really learned how to do my makeup.

7:20 I have to say. Yeah, never been into that.

7:22 So yeah, I just do like YouTube tutorials or actually TikTok or

7:26 whatever. Yeah, same days.

7:28 And I'm like, oh, that's how you make your eyes look nice.

7:31 But I still I'm still not that good at it.

7:33 I suck at yeah, I think it's patience thing.

7:35 I don't have the patience for and.

7:36 Also like these women who take men, people who wear makeup who

7:40 take like literally an hour to put on your makeup.

7:44 Mine takes me like maybe 3 minutes.

7:47 Oh yeah, whack it on. Like you whack it.

7:49 On I did mine before, like yeah. Just Oh no, I thought, I

7:52 actually thought you took your time compared to what I do.

7:54 I was really brick girl. Oh, shoveling my brick.

8:00 I look. Like, I know what I'm doing,

8:01 yeah. You really did.

8:03 No, I got the illusion. No, it's all illusion.

8:07 Anyway, so second episode of our three-part school shooting

8:12 series. Today we are going to be talking

8:14 about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which took place

8:18 on the 14th of December in 2012 in Sandy Hook which is in

8:22 Connecticut in the US. This is the deadliest school

8:26 shooting of an elementary school in the US to this day.

8:30 Ranch #2 two overall overall, the one ahead of it, which was

8:33 actually 1. I don't know really well, it's

8:35 it's not. I was like, quite shocked to see

8:36 I actually have to pull up the name of it because I can't

8:38 remember it off the top of my heads.

8:39 Blacksburg, VA. Which, yeah.

8:42 I mean, I remember hearing about it, but I don't, I don't know it

8:46 in the depth that I know the three that we're discussing over

8:48 this series. Absolutely.

8:50 Maybe that's something we can look into at some point.

8:52 Yeah, it's, it caught my attention that that was one that

8:54 wasn't really on my radar. But yeah, that this is number 2

8:57 just, and it's an elementary school to boot, is just awful.

9:01 It's horrific. So as opposed to the Columbine

9:04 school shooting, this school shooting was actually

9:06 perpetrated by a single perpetrator by the name of Adam

9:10 Lanza. Yeah, he shot and killed 2020 of

9:12 the victims were children between 6:00 and seven years

9:16 old. Like honestly, honestly.

9:20 And the other six were adult staff members so and his mother

9:25 so. Yeah, as I said, the total death

9:27 toll was 28. Putting himself.

9:28 And his mom, yeah. So at the school it was 26, but

9:32 prior to getting himself down to Sandy Hook and we still don't

9:36 really know why he chose Sandy Hook Elementary.

9:39 It wasn't the school that he attended.

9:41 Lots of rumour at the time that his mum had worked there, that

9:45 all these sorts of things, but there was, they found no

9:47 connection really. Aside from the proximity of

9:50 where he was living at the time. Yes, yeah.

9:53 So I feel like, you know, we were talking in the Columbine

9:56 episode about these copycat type murders.

9:59 Maybe he, I don't know, got a. Copycat to him like what he

10:02 wore, for example, as we spoke about in the previous episode,

10:06 he wore all black, you know, and things like world black coat.

10:10 So, yeah, there was some copycat esque elements.

10:13 Yeah, to this, yeah. So maybe that's all it was.

10:17 That's what I'm saying. It's not like, yeah, there was

10:19 another reason. Believe the school was only a 5

10:22 minute drive from his house so it just may have been a

10:24 convenience thing of I think it was the closest school.

10:27 Yeah. Cuz there was certainly mental

10:30 health issues here that really drove this.

10:33 So yeah, not, not a, a revenge thing like what was sort of put

10:37 on the Columbine one of, you know, that we're targeting

10:39 certain people and those that sort of issue.

10:40 It was literally just that's the closest one, I think.

10:44 Yeah. Yeah.

10:45 So suffered or not suffered, he had Asperger's syndrome and he

10:49 suffered from depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive

10:52 disorder. So they were for all formally

10:54 diagnosed prior to the perpetration of this, of these

10:58 murders. Do you want to get into talking

11:00 about his mom? Yeah, just really quickly.

11:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep.

11:04 So she knew obviously about all of these diagnosis.

11:09 I think she wasn't all that much of a present parent and she

11:14 certainly wasn't, you know, the type of parent that knew what a

11:17 kid was doing day-to-day and, you know, was really all that

11:20 involved in his life. She owned the firearm that he

11:25 used to perpetrate these murders and all of the ammunition that

11:29 went along with it. She.

11:30 Was a gun enthusiast, was what? Yep, was the words.

11:32 Used for her and by the sounds of it wasn't something that she

11:36 had a lot of respect for because it's not like she kept her guns,

11:40 you know, securely locked up to the point where her how old was

11:44 he? He was 20 to the point where her

11:46 20 year old son couldn't access them.

11:47 I mean, I know access. He had full access, but not the

11:50 licenses to go with it. So I know, you know, there are

11:54 people who own guns and they have them locked away in a safe.

11:57 Their significant other probably doesn't even know the

12:00 combination to that safe because that's the safest way to own and

12:05 keep a gun, even though I completely disagree with that.

12:08 Oh, that's a completely personal thing for me.

12:10 But yeah, I just don't think guns belong in anyone's house or

12:13 anything like that. Controversial.

12:16 Probably if we've got some US listeners, but that's the way.

12:18 I feel the purposes for guns. To me, if you live in a farm,

12:23 you might have a purpose for that, absolutely.

12:24 And I do understand people use them recreationally in terms of

12:27 like, but that's why. You've got gun clubs where you

12:29 can get guns. Things like that, yeah.

12:31 I, I don't feel comfortable with the thought of actually having

12:35 guns kept in a house. No, particularly with children.

12:38 Yeah, I just, but even even with a 20 year old who's got mental

12:42 health issues like that to me is a recipe for disaster.

12:45 Well, not in every. City there was a report written

12:49 by the office of the Child Advocate who stated literally

12:53 that that his severe and deteriorating mental

12:55 internalized mental health because he wasn't really being

12:58 treated for it no he. Wasn't and that's that's part of

13:00 the. Issue so combined with the

13:02 atypical preoccupation with violence and the access to

13:06 deadly weapons proved to be a recipe for mass murder.

13:10 Yeah, like that's that was in their report.

13:12 That's what they wrote of him, but.

13:13 This is the thing, like I know you can't kill a person with a

13:20 gun if you don't have a gun. And to me, this situation was

13:23 not, it wasn't just like, oh, we didn't understand.

13:26 He had these issues. He was treated by psychologists.

13:29 And it was recommended that extensive support be put in

13:32 place for this man. Boy, you know, so by a man.

13:35 Yeah. So Yale Child Study Center was

13:38 where he was treated originally with an antidepressant drugs.

13:43 He was also given, he was actually given medication at a

13:46 time where at one point where he took it for three days, didn't

13:49 like it. So stop taking it.

13:50 There was practically no intervention from that point

13:54 onwards. And his mum just chose to not do

13:56 these things that were being reckoned highly recommended.

13:59 And this was. Before just.

14:01 This was before he turned 18. Yeah.

14:02 It's not like, you know, he was a child at this time.

14:05 Not his mother did not enforce or she never followed through

14:10 with anything or followed up on anything.

14:11 Now, I know it's, it's easy to blame the parents in these

14:14 situations and I'm, you know, there's obviously a lot of

14:17 nuance in all of this. But as a parent of a child who's

14:20 got these significant issues going on, and I'm not talking

14:24 about some generalized anxiety and depression.

14:27 This was severe depression that he was experiencing and he did

14:31 not. He was showing signs that would

14:33 have been incredibly concerning. She didn't do anything about it.

14:37 No, in fact, she had guns in her home.

14:40 Like what the hell? So the recommendations from this

14:42 Yale Child Study Centre, Yeah, were for extensive special

14:46 education supports, ongoing expert consultation and rigorous

14:50 therapeutic supports that would have been, should have been

14:52 embedded into his daily life. Wow.

14:55 So we're not talking just, you know, it needs a couple of

14:57 sessions of therapy here and there like this.

14:59 It was identified very much so that this was is an issue and

15:03 that was all largely gone unheated.

15:06 None of this was taken up. So the impact of that is huge of

15:10 what that's creative for other people.

15:12 His own mother did say that he didn't come from his come out of

15:15 his room for three months straight.

15:17 He lived in her basement. And so she describes him as

15:20 having no feelings or no no emotions.

15:23 Now we spoke you're saying he had was diagnosed with

15:26 Asperger's and depression, anxiety as well as OCD.

15:29 Now there is no connection with having an Asperger is not a

15:32 disorder anymore anyway. No, that's.

15:34 Right, it's not even. Diagnosing but so autism is what

15:36 he had yeah so but not that is not the cause of what happened

15:40 so there there was these other issues that were going on for

15:43 him as well that we we talked about it as well with the other

15:46 with Eric as well Eric Harris you know that there were other

15:49 mental health issues not autism the there is no link between

15:53 someone going doing mass shooting to be honest completely

15:56 the opposite is what autistic people generally are like

15:59 that's. That compliant and rule abiding

16:01 all of those. Things absolutely, but that his

16:03 mother apparently just they, they the only way she was

16:06 allowed to communicate with him was via e-mail.

16:08 She wasn't. And they lived in the same

16:09 house, apparently. Like because this was just, this

16:11 was not long before Christmas, this occurred.

16:13 She gave him a card a few days before the shooting and in the

16:18 the card, it was a Christmas card.

16:20 It was, it was, it was a check and it was a message saying

16:23 Merry Christmas and encouraging him to go and buy himself a nice

16:27 new gun. What on earth?

16:30 A man, a boy, whichever at 20, he's both to me is living in

16:36 your home and not even coming out to socialize in any way,

16:39 shape or form for three months. He doesn't get guns.

16:44 Let's turn the kindergarten. Just that does my head in.

16:48 Well, it did. It did her head.

16:49 In because. Yes, turns out on that morning

16:52 before 9:30 AM, he shot and killed her while she was still

16:57 in bed. She was in her pajamas and he

16:59 shot her four times in the head. Awful, awful.

17:03 He then popped in her car and drove to Santee Hook Elementary

17:07 just going back. Slightly on that, sorry, no,

17:09 just because the only motive that they can sort of link with

17:12 this and in respect to his mother is that she was talking

17:16 about wanting to move. So because of like his

17:19 situation, she was thinking that maybe they're moving to a

17:21 different place would be good for him.

17:23 So she had potentially discussed this with him or mentioned it.

17:27 But the thing was he would not move out of this.

17:29 The area he was in the basement, he was not, he didn't want

17:32 anyone in his bedroom. And there's a reason for that

17:34 that comes up later. So no one had been in there and

17:37 he was not prepared to let, you know, people come in and view

17:41 the house for her to be able to then sell it.

17:42 So her idea of that was that she was talking about buying him an

17:44 RV so that she could move him into that and he could stay in

17:48 that whilst she showed the house to, you know, pack it up and

17:50 move and everything and sell it. What the hell?

17:54 Even that, even that is absolutely even that is so

17:59 fucked up. Absolutely.

18:01 Sorry. I just, yeah.

18:02 No, no, that's actually really good for context because it

18:04 gives you an idea of like she was obviously pandering to his

18:08 every whim instead of actually getting him the fucking

18:10 treatment he needed. And at the end of the day, you

18:12 know, pandering to his every whim, all that got you was a was

18:15 a shotgun to the head. Like, it's not as if this he was

18:18 that mentally disturbed that he wasn't going, you know?

18:21 Oh, my mom's my one person that's looking out for me.

18:23 He was like, fuck you. You want to move me?

18:26 No, I'm not moving. Yeah.

18:27 I'll show you. Oh yeah, heartbreaking as

18:30 mother. Not long after 935 and he had

18:34 his mum's, one of his mum's rifles with him.

18:37 At the time, he had 10 magazines with 30 rounds each, so he had

18:42 300 bullets ready to go. Yeah, he shot his way through a

18:48 glass panel next to the schools locked front entrance doors.

18:51 So I. Just had an upgrade of all these

18:53 facilities of like before, like this is where I was saying like

18:56 from 1999 from, you know, coming from Columbine, there were

19:00 learnings that had Turks, Hagenplies, unfortunately not

19:03 ones where like, you know, maybe gun laws, I don't know, haven't

19:06 been sorry. You know that that schools had

19:10 all implemented or not all schools, but a lot of schools

19:12 had implemented all these safety measures and security measures.

19:14 They had like a system of like it was all locked doors.

19:16 You had to be visually seen on a camera to be let into the

19:20 building. That's not going to stop.

19:22 A gun? Well, no.

19:24 He just shot through. It he just, he just shot through

19:26 it. I mean, after this happened,

19:28 there were further measures again where a lot of schools

19:30 then introduced metal detectors and that kind of thing for

19:33 students coming through. But again, if you're if you've

19:36 got a gun, you're going to be able to get into a building like

19:39 there's, there's, it's like if you want to rob a house, you'll

19:42 find a way in putting. A Band-Aid on a situation.

19:44 You know, it's not going to fix the problem.

19:46 I understand it might somewhat reduce risk, maybe in some ways.

19:50 But if every school in America has got metal detectors and

19:53 security guards, OK. But a gun's a gun at the end of

19:57 the day, and a gun can penetrate all of those things.

19:59 Yeah. So what the fuck are you

20:01 actually doing? Get rid of your guns.

20:04 Sorry. Sorry.

20:05 I know. I know.

20:07 I can't believe that that's even potentially A controversial

20:10 thing to say. I.

20:11 Wouldn't this is it? Absolutely.

20:13 So he's shot in, gone through the the side panel of the door

20:18 and the principal and the school psychologist.

20:21 So the principal's name was Dawn Hosh Sprung.

20:25 Oh, God. I don't know how to say that

20:26 name properly. I'm sorry.

20:27 Dawn and Mary Sherlock were meeting with other faculty

20:31 members and they actually heard, and you can see this on CCTV,

20:35 they actually heard something. And you can tell they were kind

20:38 of startled by the noise, but no, what?

20:41 They didn't panic. So in that immediate instance,

20:44 it's not like they were like, fuck, there's a shooter in

20:46 school. But it took them a beat to kind

20:49 of go, oh, my God, That's that's they're gunshots.

20:51 They're gunshots. So in this moment, my goodness,

20:55 there were some heroes in this story.

20:57 Yeah. One of them was a janitor who

20:59 was he was in the hallways, in the hallway.

21:02 And he obviously recognized what was going on here.

21:05 I think he actually even saw Adam Lanza with a gun.

21:09 Yes. He's then gone to all the

21:10 classrooms down the hallway going active shooter, active

21:13 shooter and alerted everyone and.

21:15 Unfortunately, they do have, you know, practice of these

21:19 incidents and so there are things that they do this.

21:22 School had done an active shooter drill two weeks prior.

21:25 A couple of the classrooms still had the blackout window Shields

21:29 on their classroom windows. Like they're so.

21:33 Yeah, what I'm so their doors. The doors are going to the

21:35 classrooms that have the window on them.

21:37 Yes. Two of the classrooms had black

21:40 paper covering it from their active shooter drill two weeks

21:43 ago. Yes.

21:43 That actually saved an entire classroom worth of students

21:46 Yeah. So what this particular a

21:47 teacher did, they had a bathroom in their classroom.

21:51 Yes, she got her. I think it was something like 26

21:54 students into a bathroom, She said.

21:56 I've heard her interviewed and she said I don't even know how

21:59 we fit. I could not today.

22:00 I could not fit 26 people into there.

22:02 I had to. So we just did it, She said.

22:05 There were kids on top of other kids.

22:07 It was a tiny little bathroom. So but her doing that saved

22:11 their life because not only did she still have the blackout

22:14 paper on her window, there was no one in that classroom in that

22:18 classroom. So he's like opening the door.

22:20 There was no one there. Yes.

22:21 And that, you know, she's telling the kids those.

22:23 Children, quiet, quiet and just be sorry.

22:26 That's gonna really get me. Yeah, you can't even imagine.

22:29 She is an absolute hero. And it's because of the janitor

22:33 who alerted her to that fact, because she says in when I, in

22:36 that interview I heard with her, she says that she he didn't know

22:39 anything was going on, but they had no idea.

22:41 No, they didn't hear the gunshots.

22:42 And this all happened so extremely quickly.

22:45 This was like 40 seconds or something after he ended the

22:48 building. His rampage went for 5 minutes.

22:50 That's. Only 5 minutes, which doesn't

22:52 sound like long, but. I bet it felt like.

22:54 My fucking last time it would have, but at the same time, in 5

22:57 minutes, he, I mean, well, he killed a lot of people in a very

23:01 short space of time, which is just horrific.

23:05 Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God.

23:07 So yeah, in the 5 minutes of his attack, so between 9:35 and

23:11 9:40, he shot. So there were a number, as you

23:16 say, like a number of stories of very heroic people.

23:20 Yeah. The teachers in these

23:22 classrooms. There was one particular

23:24 classroom where a teacher was found, and she was laying on top

23:27 of another student who she was obviously protecting.

23:30 But unfortunately, that little child also passed away.

23:34 Another teacher was found and she had stepped in front of her

23:37 entire class and where So she had died, but also had six

23:40 children behind her. But there were children who

23:42 lived through that. One particular one who I think

23:45 there was why she was on her own.

23:46 She was the only one that survived from that group.

23:48 She acted and played dead and that's what saved her.

23:51 You know, I heard an interview with her dad, her dad is a

23:54 police officer or an ex police officer and they practiced at

23:58 home that that was what she should do if this ever happened.

24:02 And she said to him, when she got out of that, out of there, I

24:06 think her, the husband and wife were together.

24:08 The mom and dad were together. And this little girl came out

24:10 and said, mom, I did what you told what dad told me to do.

24:13 I played dead, but all of my friends are actually dead.

24:16 Oh my God, She's six years old. Six.

24:19 Years old. There was six and seven.

24:21 All the children that were killed were six and seven years

24:23 old. Just is horrific.

24:27 This this one again, I, I was like pretty much the same age as

24:32 the teachers that were murdered and I was teaching a grade 1-2

24:34 class at this time. So it just, it really hit me

24:38 this one hard. I, I can and The thing is that

24:40 what came out of this one afterwards was a lot of talk

24:43 around that teachers should be given guns for fuck's sake.

24:47 And I thought, are you freaking for real?

24:49 We currently as teachers. I have a rant here.

24:53 You know, you put on various hats in a day, you're a nurse,

24:55 you're a psychologist, you're everything to these kids.

24:57 And now you also want us to be gun holding.

25:01 Like that's just not what you go into teaching to do.

25:05 You protect your children And look, you know, by these what

25:09 these teachers did, they put their bodies in front of these

25:12 children and they would protect them with their lives 100%.

25:15 But why on earth would teachers need guns in their classrooms?

25:18 Their guns need to be removed elsewhere, not put more guns in.

25:23 What on earth? I can guarantee you that I, so I

25:27 would fairly confidently say that majority of teachers in

25:31 Australia, in America, all over the world are not people who

25:34 like guns. I think I could be fairly, that

25:38 would be a fairly easy thing to prove that these people are not,

25:42 you know, pro gun who teach and there's a reason for that.

25:45 I'll just put that out there. There's no way teachers would

25:49 walk out before they would. But you've, you've got this

25:52 situation where you like, OK, these people are dying at the

25:57 hands of these guns and the people on the other end of them.

26:01 The solution to that isn't to introduce more guns, although

26:05 that seems to be the call every time something like this

26:08 happens. The call is for more arms.

26:10 There's no like, what? What the fuck?

26:14 No, I can't even. Yeah, it seems so backwards to

26:17 think about it that way around. I just don't understand.

26:20 Yeah, no. At so at 9:40, as you say, so

26:23 he's entered the building at 9:35, at 9:40 and three seconds,

26:28 the final shot was heard by the police.

26:30 They believed that it was Lanza shooting himself.

26:35 He shot himself in the low rear portion of his head with a

26:37 Glock. And he was in a classroom at the

26:40 time. So there were students who

26:41 witnessed that, too, just to add to the fire.

26:44 So they begun. Evacuating students at about

26:46 10:00 AM they entered the building realizing that yeah,

26:49 that's the gunshots had had ceased and obviously with this

26:52 one being in 2012, like mobile phones, etcetera, they had

26:55 access to people in the building who could stay to them what was

26:58 going on so there were a number of 911 calls that came through

27:01 from inside the building explaining to people outside

27:04 what was going on. So I think that's a big help if

27:07 you can get that access for the police officers on the outside

27:10 to know what they're coming into a little bit more.

27:12 So they were able to enter the building by 10 AM and evacuate

27:15 all the students and secure the school.

27:16 But again, you know, it's, it takes them a long time to still

27:20 surveil the scene, you know, and work out what's gone on and find

27:24 what you know, what was there? There was only, I think 2 that

27:28 were injured in this one. Whereas I mean, so he when he

27:30 shot, he shot and he. He shot to kill.

27:33 He shot to kill. Absolutely.

27:35 So ultimately, as we said, 20 students were killed who were

27:39 all aged 6 or 7, and then six teachers or another adults,

27:45 personnel from the school that were were also killed in that 5

27:49 minutes. That's all it took him.

27:51 It's just so heartbreaking. Oh.

27:53 It's horrible. Should we go through the list of

27:56 the victims? So obviously we had.

27:58 First of all, the first victim was his mum, Nancy Lanza, who

28:02 was shot at his home at age 52. We then have the school

28:06 personnel. We had Rachel Davino who was a

28:09 behaviour therapist. She was 29 years old.

28:13 Dawn Hochsprung, who was the principal at 47 years of age.

28:16 Anne Marie Murphy, 52. She was a special education

28:20 teacher and apparently an absolutely beautiful soul.

28:24 Lauren Rousseau Rousseau Rousseau aged 30 A teacher.

28:31 She was one of the Grade One teachers.

28:33 Mary Sherlock, aged 56. She was the school psychologist.

28:38 Victoria Soto, who's 27, who was also one of the grade one

28:41 teachers in one of the classrooms, there was actually

28:44 some stuff I actually did write about her.

28:46 I highlighted about her. Sorry.

28:48 No, it was really important. So the special education teacher

28:51 also that you spoke about, and Marie Murphy was involved.

28:54 Yeah, sorry, Soto. Victoria Soto was the one found

28:56 and covering and one of the children at the time.

28:59 So she was protecting him, but unfortunately he passed away as

29:02 well. So absolutely brave acts by

29:04 those that were. Students who passed away, who

29:08 were murdered. Charlotte Bacon, aged 6.

29:11 Daniel Barden, aged 7. Olivia Engel, aged 6.

29:16 Josephine Gay, aged 7. Dylan Hockley, aged 6.

29:20 Madeline Hsu, aged 6. Catherine Hubbard, aged 6.

29:25 Chase Kowalski, aged 7. Jesse Lewis, aged 6.

29:30 Anna Marquez Green, aged 6. James Mattioli, aged 6.

29:36 Sorry, I've lost my page. Grace McDonnell, aged 7.

29:42 Emil Parker, aged 6. Jack Pinto, aged 6.

29:47 Noah Posner, aged 6. Carolyn Provetti, aged 6.

29:53 Jessica Ricos aged 6, Aviel Rickman, aged 6, Benjamin

29:59 Wheeler aged 6 and Alison Wyatt aged 6.

30:03 And as you said, there were two wounded teachers, Natalie

30:06 Hammond, who was aged 40, and Deborah Pizzani, but I'm not

30:10 quite sure what her role was. So in response to this, I've,

30:14 I've found this quite interesting.

30:16 I mean, obviously there's the immediate aftermath, the chaos.

30:19 We talked about that in the in the Columbine massacre, the same

30:22 thing happened. Reunification of parents with

30:25 their students and with this with their children and all of

30:29 that. You know that the scene would

30:31 have been absolute chaos. There was hours in some cases

30:35 before parents were reunified with their children.

30:37 And then you've got to think about those parents who weren't

30:40 reunified with their children and what their experience would

30:42 be. I find it absolutely sickening

30:45 because there is a lot of on the Internet about this where people

30:50 are, there's a lot of conspiracy theories and and.

30:54 Absolute. Fucking horseshit.

30:56 I'm not even gonna talk about it because it's it does not.

30:58 It does my warrant. Every time one of these comes

31:00 up, the conspiracy theorists jump in and want a piece of the

31:02 action. It's disgusting.

31:04 It's absolutely just. Occurred and there's victims who

31:07 are you know should be. And parents who are grieving the

31:10 death of the the absolutely horrific murders of their

31:14 children. Fuck off people, just fuck off.

31:18 Absolutely. President Barack Obama at the

31:21 time, he gave a televised address on the day of the

31:24 shootings. And I'm just going to read you a

31:26 couple of quotes from that day. We're going to have to come

31:30 together and make meaningful action to prevent more tragedies

31:34 like this, regardless of politics.

31:36 He expressed enormous, simple sympathy for the families that

31:40 were affected, obviously then sparked yet another gun debate

31:44 in the US And the fact that Obama came out and said what he

31:47 said was a massive deal at the time, but it didn't do anything.

31:50 But he then didn't follow it through.

31:51 And I think the IRA in the NRA. NRA.

31:56 Sorry. The IRA?

31:57 Sorry, wrong. Wrong country.

31:58 Wrong. The National Rifle Association

32:03 in the US have so much political power and so much political pull

32:07 and the fact that, you know, they, they talk about their

32:09 Amendment rights in to, you know, carry firearms and

32:12 whatnot. I'm gonna mention this just

32:14 once. This applies to the three

32:16 episodes that we're doing about this gun control, but about,

32:19 about, yeah, specifically about gun control.

32:22 And I feel like I may have mentioned this in a previous

32:24 episode, but please do yourselves A favour.

32:27 Google John Oliver and his gun reform series.

32:32 He interviews congressman in the US.

32:35 He interviews Australian ex Australian Prime Minister John

32:38 Howard, who actually was at the forefront of our gun reform in

32:42 Australia. And not even that you know, we

32:45 had one incident which was the that's I remember now talking

32:48 about it in the Port Arthur massacre episode.

32:50 We had one mass shooting, one mass shooting in Australia, and

32:54 you should see the images of the 10s of thousands of guns that

32:58 people voluntarily got rid of in the hopes of keeping Australia

33:04 safe from another incident like that.

33:06 And that is exactly what's happened.

33:08 What's happened? We don't have school shootings.

33:10 Thank God we don't have school shootings in Australia, you

33:13 know, in America already this year.

33:15 Oh my gosh, I didn't write the thing down.

33:17 I was literally reading it this morning though.

33:19 But in America already there's been 10s of school shootings

33:22 this year. It's crazy.

33:24 We're in. May I was I was look watching a

33:26 TikTok recently of a woman who's living in Sydney, but she's a

33:29 American, right? And so her husbands work has

33:31 brought them here to Australia. They were only staying for 12

33:34 months at the time. And so in her little her eldest

33:37 was preschool age, but they've ended up being under contracts

33:41 being extended and they've been asked to stay.

33:43 And she was like, then we look for schools.

33:45 So she went to look for primary schools for her, her child.

33:48 And she was like blown away by how she got there and was like,

33:52 oh, I just walked into the school grounds like she, and it

33:55 really like unsettled her because she was like, oh gosh,

33:57 there's no protections. And her, she, her first reaction

33:59 was this whole whole idea of like, Oh my God, but my child's

34:03 not gonna be safe, right? And so she was like went and did

34:06 the thing. And then she as she was got into

34:07 it, she realized that, but the other parents aren't worried

34:10 about this. She, it wasn't actually, she

34:12 hadn't realized that that wasn't something that in Australia we

34:15 don't need to worry about. And so as she got more into it

34:18 and a child started school for the beginning of the year, just

34:20 this year, she has gone, she's flipped entirely in terms of I

34:26 don't ever want to move back to America because she can send her

34:29 kid to school without any concerns and without having to

34:33 have those security measures in place.

34:36 And The thing is, she she finds it really hard to explain it to

34:38 her friends back home. I bet like that.

34:40 I mean. I'm sure they would all.

34:41 Love to have that experience, yeah, but they can't actually.

34:44 Reality standard. It's not the reality.

34:45 Exactly. And so it's really, it was

34:47 really interesting listening to her talk about it of that idea

34:50 of like how incredible that is. Whereas that is our normal and

34:53 the idea of what you guys go through in America of like

34:56 honestly I would homeschool my children 100,000,000% in America

35:01 if I had to be forced to be to live there.

35:03 There is absolutely no way I would send my children to school

35:06 like it concerns me. I very much I fully agree with

35:10 you I. Wouldn't live there for that

35:12 reason. I wouldn't live there for as I.

35:14 Say if I was forced to live there, which I have no desire

35:17 to, no. But yeah, I would absolutely

35:19 homeschool my children. I just couldn't.

35:21 But as a parent like. That's a big call to like I, you

35:24 know, for the, for those parents who can't homeschool their

35:27 children because they're working full time in order to homeschool

35:30 my children, I'm I. Know, I know I'm a teacher and

35:32 like qualified, but yeah, no, no, I have so much value in the

35:35 school system, yes, that even I wouldn't put my children in a

35:38 school system that meant they were in danger like that.

35:40 Absolutely. That is what I'm trying to say.

35:42 But yeah, no that and that is. Completely fair, I totally

35:45 understand where you're coming from and I fully agree with you.

35:47 But some people, people have no options.

35:49 Absolutely there are. There would be parents sending

35:52 their kids off to school every day in the US, terrified,

35:55 terrified that something like this might happen.

35:59 You know, vibrating level of. Of, you know, like anxiety in a

36:01 day that's unhealthy, Yeah. Where?

36:04 Because then to me. That's actually absolutely

36:08 breeding more people who go out and do these kinds of shootings.

36:13 You know that level of anxiety in a person is not healthy, no.

36:17 It's getting rid of the. Guns would solve so many issues.

36:20 Yeah, I always remember too, like when I've been to it, when

36:23 I was, I've travelled to America and like, I remember one day I

36:25 was standing in like a random shop in, you know, buying

36:28 something. And it actually had this thought

36:30 of like I was in a queue lining up to get to the register.

36:33 And when it's likely that more than one even person here has a

36:39 gun in their handbag and the realization for that for me was

36:42 so daunting like that even just can't even like that's.

36:46 I don't know how people live like that.

36:47 I really don't I. Don't know whether it becomes

36:51 normal Yeah, You know, I mean it must because how else do you

36:54 live like that? I.

36:56 You could. I don't even know.

36:58 I don't know because we don't have that lived experience.

37:00 We don't know what that's like, so I'm so.

37:03 Happy for that. Yeah, same.

37:05 Yeah, same. We could probably go on about

37:08 this far, but we'll leave it there for now.

37:10 Please join us again on Tuesday for the last in our series on

37:14 the US school shootings. We'll be discussing Uvalde,

37:17 which was an absolute fuck up right from the get go.

37:19 So we've got a lot to talk about there.

37:21 Thank you everybody for joining us again today and keep us in

37:24 check on the socials. Please message us.

37:26 We love hearing from everybody. Well, absolutely.

37:29 Thanks. Everyone and yeah like subscribe

37:31 right on the you know, platform. It helps us out all the time and

37:34 love the comments. So stay curious.

37:36 Crime besties.