Reliving Horror and Faint Hope at Massacre Site

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The gunfire ended; it was so quiet they could hear the broken glass and bullet casings scraping under their boots. The smell of gunpowder filled the air. The officers turned down their radios; they did not want to give away their positions if there was still a gunman present.They found the two women first, their bodies lying on the lobby floor. Now they knew it was real. But nothing, no amount of training, could prepare them for what they found next, inside those two classrooms.

“Our concern from the beginning has been the effects of PTSD,” said Eric Brown, a lawyer for the union that represents the Newtown police. “We estimate it is probably going to be 12 to 15 Newtown officers who are going to be dealing with that, for the remainder of their careers, we imagine, from what we’ve been told by professionals who deal with PTSD.”

www.nytimes.com...

This is the first time we've heard first-hand accounts of the officers who entered the school. While the fathers and mothers of the slain children bear the unimaginable grief of losing their child these officers have their own private nightmares that will probably haunt them the rest of their lives. First responders everywhere deal with tragedy on a near-daily basis but to be a witness to the wholesale slaughter of innocents on the scale that was Sandy Hook must be an extraordinary burden to bear.

Some will criticize the actions of police that day but so far as they knew they were dealing with a situation with an active shooter on scene. Knowing time was of the essence yet having to take extreme care their job was not a simple thing for anyone regardless of the training one may have had.

It doesn't say in the article but I would imagine each of them wonders if they had just done this faster or perhaps entered the school at a different place would things have turned out as they did. That is a horrible burden for anyone to bear.

I post this so people can understand better not only the actions of the police but to show the human side not portrayed often enough by media. Real people the same as you and I but for one critical difference; they wear a badge that says they must go in to situations such as Sandy Hook while the rest of us watch safely from our living rooms.
Please limit your comments to the subject of the article and refrain from baseless speculation that has given conspiracy theorists such a bad reputation of late.

www.nytimes.com...

Here are larger pictures of the first responders: www.nytsyn.com...
It would be interesting to see if they are also present in some of the photos or video footage of that day.

A bit strange in my opinion is the following:

As Officers Chapman and Smith approached the second classroom in the hallway on their left, they spotted a rifle on the floor. Inside, they found the gunman, Adam Lanza, dead by his own hand, along with the bodies of several children and other adults.

The officers searched the room for any other gunmen, then began searching for signs of life among the children. One little girl had a pulse and was breathing. Officer Chapman cradled her in his arms and ran with her outside, to an ambulance.

If the ambulance was already outside at the shool, I think it would be better to let the medics come and take the girl, they know what they are doing and how to do it properly. By taking the girl on his arm and running with her, her injuries could have become worse.

Or did this mean he run with the girl on his arm to the firehouse? If you take a severely injured kid on your arm and run with it for several minutes it could be it will die from it (because it will be shaken too much), this should be prevented if possible.

reply to post by Marlow


If the crime scene was not cleared yet, its not likely that medical personnel would be allowed in at that point.

Rumors swirl when there is a dearth of information released. It's hardly the public's fault when rumors and conspiracies flourish. That's the fault of the police when they keep all the info under wraps.

www.ctpost.com...
A moment later, she(Scarlett Lewis, mother of deceased victim Jesse McCord Lewis) reaches into a plastic sandwich bag and pulls out a small piece of glass....Lewis retrieved the glass fragment from Jesse's classroom on Christmas Day. ...
So when police approached her and asked if she wanted to return to Sandy Hook School, Lewis agreed almost on the spot, even though she knew how much it was going to hurt.
"The front doors and the side glass were completely blown out and gone and covered with plywood, but you knew what was under it.
"And then, the first two classrooms were completely gone. The windows were all blown out. The only other family who had been there was Miss Soto's family," Lewis said of Jesse's teacher, Victoria Soto. "So we took a piece of glass because there was glass scattered all over ....It wasn't until later that police told Lewis that Jesse died running toward the shooter, apparently trying to lead his classmates to safety. Jesse was given a commander-in-chief's funeral for his actions, an honor usually reserved for heads of state and soldiers who have fallen in the act of valor, Lewis said.
"We were in the limo following the hearse, and there were two motorcycles on each side of us with their sirens on. And there were 10 police cars in front of us and 10 behind," Lewis said.

Some questions:

--If they had mopped up the blood by this time, why didn't they sweep up the glass at the same time?

--How come the windows in both the affected classrooms were blown out? Did the shooter shoot them out? There was no indication of that.

--How do they know victim Jesse McCord had run toward the shooter?

reply to post by starviego


The concept of police allowing (inviting!?) the parents of one of the slain children in to the crime scene just seems bizarre to me. No one else was allowed in not even the EMTs, so what gives?
I would think if one parent were asked they should have all been asked but that didn't happen. Again - why?
Another thing is the windows were still there at the end of the day on 12/14. I have pictures that show them still there. Why would they have all been smashed out? Sounds like tampering with a crime scene to me.