In grieving town, kids back at all schools but 1

A smiling student arrives Tuesday at Hawley School in Newtown, Conn.
A smiling student arrives Tuesday at Hawley School in Newtown, Conn.

— Newtown returned its students to their classrooms Tuesday for the first time since last week’s massacre and faced the agonizing task of laying others to rest, as the grieving town wrestled with the same issues gripping the country: violence, gun control and finding a way forward.

Funerals were held for two more of the children killed, a 6-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl. A total of 26 people were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. The gunman also killed his mother in her home before committing suicide.

The resumption of classes at all of Newtown’s schools except Sandy Hook meant the return of familiar routines, something students seemed to welcome as they arrived aboard buses festooned with large green-andwhite ribbons — the colors of the stricken elementary school.

“We’re going to be able to comfort each other and try and help each other get through this, because that’s the only way we’re going to do it,” said 17-year-old P.J. Hickey, a senior at Newtown High School. “Nobody can do this alone.”

Still, he noted: “There’s going to be no joy in school. It really doesn’t feel like Christmas anymore.”

The Newtown school district plans to move Sandy Hook pupils to a former middle school in nearby Monroe.

At St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, backto-back funerals were held for first-graders James Mattioli and Jessica Rekos, the third and fourth so far and the first of eight to be held in the coming days at the church. Memorial services and wakes also were held for some of the adult victims.

As mourners gathered outside, a motorcade led by police motorcycles arrived for the funeral of James, who especially loved recess and math, and who was described by his family as a “numbers guy” who couldn’t wait until he was old enough to order a foot-long Subway sandwich.

Traffic in front of the church slowed to a crawl as police directed vehicles into the parking lot. At one point, a school bus carrying elementary students got stuck in traffic, and the children, pressing their faces into the windows, sadly watched as the mourners assembled.

The service had not yet concluded when mourners began arriving for the funeral of Jessica, who loved horses and was counting the years until she turned 10, when her family had promised her a horse of her own. For Christmas, she had asked Santa for new cowgirl boots and hat.

At a wake for 27-year-old first-grade teacher Victoria Soto, hundreds of mourners, many wearing green-andwhite ribbons, stood in a line that wrapped around a funeral home in nearby Stratford, Conn.

Tensions in the shattered community ran high as the grief of parents and townspeople collided with the crush of media reporting on the shootings and the funerals.

Police walked children to parents waiting in cars to protect them from the cameras. Many parents yelled at reporters to leave their children and the town alone.

At Newtown High School, students in sweat shirts and jackets, many wearing headphones, had mixed reactions. Some waved at or snapped photos of the assembled media horde, while others appeared visibly shaken.

Students said they didn’t get much work done Tuesday and spent much of the day talking about the terrible events of last Friday, when 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza, clad all in black, broke into Sandy Hook Elementary and opened fire on students and staff members.

Priscilla and Randy Bock, arriving with their 15-yearold special needs son, James, expressed misgivings. “I was not sure we wanted him going,” Priscilla Bock said. “I’m a mom. I’m anxious.”

Authorities said the horrific events of Friday began when Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, at their home, then took her car and some of her guns to the nearby school, where he broke in and opened fire, killing 20 children and six adults before shooting himself.

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 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.

Private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday that it plans to sell its stake in Freedom Group, maker of the Bushmaster rifle, after the school shootings.

Cerberus said in a statement that it was deeply saddened by Friday’s events and that it will hire a financial adviser to help with the process of selling its Freedom Group interests.

In Pittsburgh, Dick’s Sporting Goods said it is suspending sales of modern rifles nationwide because of the shooting. The company also said it’s removing all guns from display at its store closest to Newtown.

At the same time, a former co-chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and 10-term House Republican Jack Kingston — a Georgia lawmaker elected with strong National Rifle Association backing — were the latest to join the call to consider gun control as part of a comprehensive, anti-violence effort next year.

“Put guns on the table, also put video games on the table, put mental health on the table,” Kingston said.

But he added that nothing should be done immediately, saying, “There is a time for mourning and a time to sort it out. I look forward to sorting it out and getting past the grief stage.”

President Barack Obama would support legislation restoring a ban on assault weapons and requiring background checks of buyers at gun shows as steps toward preventing more mass shootings, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Obama also would consider backing restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines like the one used by the gunman in Newtown, White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

As part of his vow to pursue solutions to gun violence in the aftermath of the shooting in Newtown, the president plans to involve mental-health professionals, law enforcement officials and educators in developing a response.

Obama also talked with Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who on Monday became one of the first pro-gun-rights lawmakers to say that some restrictions on firearms should be discussed in responding to the Connecticut killings.

But in Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich said he still intended to sign a bill allowing guns in the parking garages of the state Capitol, saying in a statement to The Plain Dealer that he is “a Second Amendment supporter and that’s not going change.”

Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas told a Tea Party group Monday that he opposed “knee-jerk reaction from Washington, D.C.,” in the wake of the shootings and said school teachers and administrators should be allowed to carry concealed weapons, according to The Dallas Morning News.

In Michigan, though, Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have allowed concealed guns in public schools. The Republican killed the measure, approved by the legislature less than 24 hours before the Newtown killings, primarily because it didn’t allow daycare centers, hospitals and other public entities to opt out, according to a letter sent to the state Senate.

At a regular U.S. House Republican private meeting Tuesday, Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, a psychologist, led a discussion on mental illness — which he described as the primary cause of mass shootings.

Murphy said he told colleagues that mental illness was the common link in similar tragic incidents and “we have to stop pretending it doesn’t exist. We need to understand what it is that triggers changes in someone.”

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association, silent since the shootings, said in a statement that it was “prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.” It gave no indication what that might entail.

In other developments, schoolchildren in the West African nation of Liberia, one of the world’s poorest countries, presented a giant sympathy card and flowers to the U.S. Embassy in memory of the lives lost during the shooting attack in Newtown.

In Utah, a sixth-grader caught with a gun at school told administrators he took the weapon to defend himself in case of an attack similar to the one in Newtown, school officials said Tuesday. The 11-year-old was being held in juvenile detention on suspicion of possessing a dangerous weapon and aggravated assault after other students at the suburban Salt Lake City elementary school told police he threatened them with the handgun.

Information for this article was contributed by David Klepper, Michael Melia,Allen G. Breed, Helen O’Neill, John Christoffersen, Katie Zezima, Christine Armario, Larry Margasak, Julie Pace, Paul Foy and Brady McCombs of The Associated Press; by Jonathan D. Salant, Roger Runningen, Juliann Francis, Kathleen Hunter, Lisa Lerer, James Rowley, Lorraine Woellert, Phil Mattingly, Devin Banerjee, Matt Townsend, Michael C. Bender, Chris Christoff,Tim Higgins and Esme E. Deprez of Bloomberg News and by Michael D. Shear, Adam Nagourney, Stephanie Clifford, Dan Frosch, Peter Baker, Mark Scott, Michael S. Schmidt, Winnie Hu, William K. Rashbaum and Wendy Ruderman of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/19/2012

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