Sandy Hook and Parkland families react to Texas shooting as father shares pain outside Florida court
‘They f*****g failed our kids again, okay? I’m done. I’ve had it. You know, how many more times?’
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Families affected by the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut and 2018 Parkland, Florida school shootings have spoken out following the Uvalde, Texas elementary school shooting that left 19 children and two adults dead.
Nicole Hockley co-founded an organisation after losing her six-year-old son in the Newtown shooting, in which 26 people were killed.
Sandy Hook Promise co-founder Mark Barden asked her how she was holding up after the news came of the Texas shooting on Tuesday.
“I just feel empty,” she said. She suggested she fly to Texas but her co-workers noted that after the Parkland shooting she had devoted herself to the response to such a degree that she broke down and almost couldn’t function, according to The Washington Post.
As her memories came back to her of the day she lost her child, she thought of how she had described what her son had been wearing that day and how the police had later returned the garments, tarnished with bullet holes.
“This didn’t hit close to home,” she told the paper. “This is home.”
Manuel Oliver’s 17-year-old son was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, southern Florida.
He thought the 18-year-old Texas gunman appeared to be similar to the 19-year-old who killed his son – close in age and with guns being easily accessible to them. Mr Oliver didn’t expect much to change this time, as largely no reform was pushed through last time.
“I’m not happy with life anymore,” Mr Oliver told The Post. “I just live.”
Alex Wind survived the Parkland shooting, when 17 people were killed, and he has been fighting for gun reform ever since.
“There are no words,” he said. “Except the same words as the time before that and the time before that and the time before that.”
Similarly to the others affected by school shootings, Mr Wind said he believes that no change will happen until conservative lawmakers go against the gun industry, which has opposed reforms widely supported by Americans for decades.
Fred Guttenberg’s daughter Jaime was also killed in the Parkland shooting. Speaking to MSNBC, he shared his frustration with lawmakers refusing to act.
“I’d like to tell them all to go f-off because [of] what they did, what they do. The way they politicize guns and violence led us to this day,” he said.
“Parents, loved ones, who their world is spinning. Who right now have to think, ‘How am I going to plan a funeral?’ Who right now have to think, ‘What kind of casket?’ Who right now have to think, ‘All I did was send them to school. And I have to plan their funeral. And I have to write a eulogy. I have to comfort those who I love. My other children, my spouse, my friends, my neighbours. I have to figure out how to go forward.’”
“Because people failed,” he added. “They … f*****g failed our kids again, okay? I’m done. I’ve had it. You know, how many more times?”
Tom Hoyer lost his 15-year-old son in the Parkland shooting. Speaking outside the Florida courtroom where the jury selection has begun in the penalty trial of the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, he said, “I know what those families had to endure sitting in a room waiting to hear that their child is laying in a school on a floor. It is heartbreaking, heartbreaking”.
“I hope their journey through all of this is a lot faster than ours,” he added.