Mom of Sandy Hook shooting victim says Minneapolis Catholic school attack was preventable
As everyone navigates through life following Wednesday morning's mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, people are turning to those who have been through it for advice.
Nicole Hockley lost her son Dylan 13 years ago in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty first-grade students and six educators were killed in the incident, igniting a movement in our country that has snowballed since.
"I always want to talk about my son," Hockley told WCCO. "He was incredibly cuddly and loved to laugh and giggle. He admired and adored his older brother, Jake. He ate fish fingers and garlic bread all the time, and loved chocolate and the color purple. I only had six years with him, but he's still with me in my heart every single day."
WCCO asked Hockley what helped her in the first few weeks and months following the shooting.
"Healing is an interesting word and one I don't tend to use a lot because I'm nearly 13 years after Dylan's murder and I am not healed, and I don't think I ever will be healed. It's about moving through and forward, not moving on," she said. "I think the things that I remember being helpful are friends who were able to hold me up and support me. Whether it was a meal train, whether it was taking me to the florist to choose flowers for Dylan's memorial service or his urn. Getting relatives in and offering homes for people to stay at. If it hadn't been for friends taking charge to lead things, like his funeral, I had no idea what to do, where to go. You can't think in those times."
Hockley is the CEO of Sandy Hook Promise, a group that is changing laws and advocating for training. She says Wednesday's shooting was preventable.
"I do have significant outrage that this keeps happening, especially because there are so many solutions to prevent these acts, and this school shooting was a preventable tragedy, as was sandy hook, as was almost every single school shooting you can think of, and the fact that we have the solutions but don't necessarily have the courage or will to put them into place across the country is frustrating. I get outraged as well when people just point to politicians not doing their jobs. I don't think this is just about policy. I think this is about all of us. And whether that's advocating for policy change, violence prevention programs in school, recognizing warning signs and saying something, we all have a role to play. If we're left in hopelessness or thinking someone else is going to take care of it, then we are allowing this problem to continue. Our children are dying, and if that can't compel you to action, I'm not quite sure what would."
Hockley says Sandy Hook Promise advocates for extreme risk protection orders. That allows certain people to request an order from the court to temporarily stop someone from purchasing or possessing a firearm during a period of crisis when they can hurt themselves or others. She said time will tell whether that could have been used to help prevent Wednesday's shooting.
"We also advocate for suicide prevention and school violence prevention," she said. "We've been incredibly successful. We've stopped, as a direct result of our training, 18 school shootings already, but then, things like yesterday [Wednesday] happen, and we realize that no matter how fast and hard we work, we still have a long way to go to keep all children safe."
She added that someone knew the shooter needed help and was in crisis.
"Helping people understand what the signs are and that they need to act immediately and to take it seriously and to tell someone when they see it, that could have prevented this," Hockley said.
35 million people in the U.S. have been through training with Sandy Hook Promise.