The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Songs turning grief into action
Changing gun law part of the plan
GUILFORD — Anyone who has endured a personal tragedy has to find their own way out of their dark well of grief.
Kristin and Mike Song, who lost their 15-year-old son Ethan when he accidentally shot himself at a friend’s house on Jan. 31, have turned their pain into action, working to change state law so that the owner of a gun, whether that gun is knowingly loaded or not, is held responsible for any injury or death.
Away from the public, they have been supported by friends and family, especially the “core four” — Kristin Song’s sister and three close friends, as well as their husbands — who in the weeks following Ethan’s death spent entire days at their house holding the family up by making breakfast and accompanying Kristin Song on long walks.
Last week, the Songs went to Washington, D.C., to meet with families who have lost children to gun violence, as well as senators and representatives, including incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who told them that on the first day of the next congressional session “they’re going to introduce a comprehensive gun package,” Kristin Song said Friday.
But the pain has been slow to ebb. They know their lives have been forever changed.
“For six months after Ethan died I couldn’t even forgive myself, that I did not protect him, because my job is to protect my children and I take that job very seriously,” Song said. “And it was really even hard for me to look at myself in the mirror because I was so mad at myself.”
But she and her husband had no clue that Ethan was handling dangerous weapons. His 14-year-old friend, whose father had kept three guns, ammunition and keys to the gun locks in a plastic container in a closet, “was a kid that we’d known since kindergarten, so it wasn’t like he was this new kid, I didn’t know him. We knew him forever. He spent a ton of time at our house,” Kristin Song said.
Daniel Markle, a private investigator, was not charged in Ethan’s death because, according to Waterbury State’s Attorney Maureen Platt, he would have had to know his guns were loaded. Connecticut General Statute 29-37i says, in part, “No person shall store or keep any loaded firearm on any premises under such person’s control if such person knows or reasonably should know that … a minor is likely to
gain access to the firearm without the permission of the parent or guardian of the minor.”
Ethan’s Law, which state Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, plans to introduce next session, would remove the word “loaded,” so that a person in a circumstance such as this could be charged with unsafe storage even if another person had loaded the weapon. (The Register is not naming Markle’s son because he is a juvenile.) The law also would change the definition of a juvenile from under 16 years old to under 18. A juvenile, not named by Guilford police, is charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection with Ethan’s death.
Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a gun rights organization based in Groton, said, “We’re still looking at the language” of Ethan’s Law. “I’m not going to offer an entire opinion on what should be done with the language,” he said.
“Obviously, we all want people to be safe, and people who own firearms should go above and beyond,” Wilson said. He said his organization supports Project ChildSafe, a program of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which is based in Newtown, and which promotes gun safety and education.
“Some of the ideas that we have are geared toward getting actual education in the schools,” Wilson said. His fear is that the law not “infringe on the rights of somebody to defend themselves in their homes. … Rather than arresting and convicting somebody after the fact, we’d rather have them be safe up front.”
Wilson said of Markle, who is the son of the late New Haven State’s Attorney Arnold Markle, “From what I’ve read, I think the way he had the firearms stored was within the law” but, asked whether he thought the guns were stored safely, he said, “Considering that the kids got into it, probably not, but we can go so far to teach our children … They had to know at some point when they were accessing that firearm that what they were doing wasn’t right. The kids were of an age where they probably knew better (than) to get into that bin where the firearm was.”
Bringing kids into gun culture
The Songs, who have sued Markle and his business, said not only did Markle not keep his guns in a locked safe but that he showed their son how to shoot without asking them. The boys had fired a pellet gun in his backyard, the Songs said, and they found out that there is no law that required Markle to ask their permission before he did so.
“The father was actually teaching the kids how to shoot air pellet guns and he was bringing them into gun culture,” Mike Song said. “There was a rifle sitting in the front hall closet. They loved to look at that rifle and they would pull the trigger on it because they assumed all the guns in the house were not loaded on multiple occasions.”
Song added, “I think when you put a gun in someone’s hand and you guys are all squeezing the trigger multiple times, they didn’t realize someone had left a loaded bullet in that gun. … There’s evidence that the trigger was pulled by both kids pointing at people.” He said the boys had been playing with the guns for months, pulling the triggers, and did so even on Jan. 31, the day Ethan shot himself.
“Our thinking is that on Jan. 12 they were playing with the guns while the father was downstairs,” Kristin Song said. “What I kind of felt is they probably loaded the gun that night, thought they had taken them all out, put the guns back where they were, and then when Ethan came over — because Ethan didn’t go over in between …. they thought the guns were unloaded,” she said.
“Ethan has no idea how to unload a gun. It was a revolver and, from talking to (Police Chief) Jeff Hutchinson, he says the last bullet catches, so you have to be really aware of where that last bullet is and make sure you shake it out … And he says these kids don’t know to do that,” she said.
Markle’s showing their son how to shoot was a part of the problem, especially, Kristin Song said, because she was “very upfront” with his son “that we don’t do guns in this house. It’s not our thing.
“Would he appreciate it if I taught his kid how to drive?” she asked. “Any behavior that is really illegal or could be dangerous in some ways” should be up to the parents of a minor to decide whether or not their child can participate. And if Markle had asked, “I would have driven over there so fast his head would have spun and Ethan would have come home,” Kristin Song said. “You protect a 14-year-old.”
Mike Song said police told them that while Markle was showing the boys how to shoot, he wasn’t necessarily focusing on gun safety. Kristin Song said it was simply inappropriate to hand her son a weapon. “You don’t allow your teenage boys to handle deadly weapons because they ignore you” when they are told not to play with them.
Markle did not respond to several requests for comment.
Wilson said of seeking permission from the Songs, “I would say that some common sense should factor in (to) parenting and community. I would want to know if my kid was invited to go target shooting.”
Jeremy Stein, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, said Markle’s teaching Ethan Song how to shoot “is ridiculously negligent. That is morally reprehensible. … It’s just basic human decency to ask the parents of the child.
“I’m all for gun safety,” Stein said. “But don’t let children handle firearms … without telling the parents of the child that you’re going to do this.”
While there is a law against giving a gun to anyone under 21, there is none that prevents an adult from allowing a minor to shoot his gun without parental permission, according to state Sen. Paul Doyle, D-Wethersfield, who is co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee but did not seek a new term. “Right now, I could go train your son without your knowledge,” he said. “Right now, there’s no parental consent.” He predicted the issue would come up in the General Assembly.
The Songs, especially Kristin, are focused on what they can do to reduce the chances that other children will be harmed by unsafe weapons. According to the End Family Fire campaign, a coalition of gun-control organizations led by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, eight children are injured or killed each day by loaded, unsafely stored guns.
At their Nov. 27 press conference, Kristin Song had said, “It is Dan Markle who has Ethan’s blood on his hands.” The Songs said that, as a parent, he should take on most of the responsibility, and that his son also bore some. “Ethan’s piece of it I think is the smallest piece of it,” Mike Song said.
“He had just turned 15 Jan. 19 and he had no experience with guns,” Kristin Song said. “He picked up the gun and it went off.”
“They don’t know exactly what happened,” Mike Song added. “And if he was aiming, he had just seen a gun that his friend assured him was unloaded, because the kid was pointing the gun at him and pulling that trigger, so we know he heard multiple clicks on that gun.”
Kristin Song, a litigator until her daughter, Emily, was born, said she must take action for Ethan’s sake. “Honor through action is really my way of continually loving him and taking care of him as a mom,” she said. “I feel strongly that if I’m not doing something to move the ball forward then I’m not really being a good mother to him. I know that sounds weird.”
“For me that is what’s helped heal me is that I can continue loving Ethan through action.”
Road race and Spikeball
The Songs will sponsor their second annual 5K road race and walk on June 8; 1,500 people participated last year. A bowlathon is planned for April 5. Their other children, Emily and Evan, organized a Spikeball event last August. They’ve raised almost $120,000 in a GoFundMe campaign. The money they raise supports the Ethan Miller Song Fund at the Guilford Foundation, which will support animal rights, human rights, gun control and other causes Ethan favored. They’ve donated to The Cove Center for Grieving Children in Meriden, among other causes. They’ve also set up a website, www.songstrong.org, to announce events and accept donations to the fund.
Their efforts have brought hate mail, “but we’re not letting that deter us,” Kristin Song said.
Among their other efforts are promoting the Say Something curriculum and app developed by Sandy Hook Promise, the group formed after the 2012 Newtown shootings, in which 20 children and six adults were killed. The app allows anyone to anonymously report any suspicious activity or concerns.
“We’re championing it. It’s free, it could save kids’ lives and we want to see it utilized all over the world,” Mike Song said. “And we think it could be one of the single greatest drivers of saving kids’ lives because … Ethan’s friends didn’t want to report it. They were understandably worried that they were getting their friend in trouble, when in reality they would have been a hero and would have saved (Ethan’s) life.”
“So for instance in Ethan’s case, these kids were playing with guns for six months,” Kristin Song said. “There were five kids who knew and, when they were interviewed, one said, ‘I thought I was going to get arrested.’ One said, ‘I thought I was going to get grounded.’ One said, ‘I didn’t think Ethan would ever talk to me again.’ And so I got to thinking that maybe if they had a way of reporting something without being on the hook … that they would have reported it and Ethan’s life would have been saved.”
They’re also concerned about the role social media companies should play in detecting dangerous activity on their sites.
Most of those who have opened fire in schools “posted six months to up to a year on social media about wanting to shoot up a school, and for suicides most of the kids will post on social media that they want to kill themselves,” Kristin Song said. “And they follow through.
“Even if you’re a really diligent parent and you’re looking at your kid’s social media, they outsmart you and they make up these fake accounts and that’s where they put all their stuff that they don’t want the parents to see,” she said. “Social media giants really need to help us out because we can’t get to the information we need to see about our children.”
“I just think there needs to be more oversight,” Mike Song said. “I know that there can be a way … The whole mechanism of social media is designed to detect what you want and what you’re doing, what you want to buy, and I think it could also be designed, with the same sensitivity, to detect kids in trouble and help them out. Maybe we could work together with them. Maybe we could make that part of the future. I know that would save a lot of lives, a lot of suicides, a lot of bullying, cyberbullying, a lot of that stuff.”
Mike Song said he also wants to promote safer gun storage. “It takes your breath away to know that a $75 combination lock gun safe would have saved my son’s life,” he said. “Seventy-five bucks is all that that guy had to do and not share the combination with his 13- or 14-year-old child.”
Markle had kept the keys to his gun locks, ammunition and guns in the same plastic container, but Mike Song said even if he had kept the keys in another room it would not have been effective in keeping their children safe.
“Keys are hard to hide. You have to go get ’em every time you use the device,” Song said. “For the future I’m just begging people who buy any type of gun lock or gun safe, get a combination lock. They’re really efficient and fast to open if you truly are one of those people who feel you need it in two seconds.”
Some open with a code like on a cell phone; others use a fingerprint, he said.
The ‘core four’
The Songs are in action mode now, but it took time. “We were pretty much I think just in shock for like two months and that part of my life is really hard to remember,” Kristin Song said.
The holidays are especially tough. “That’s the stuff that almost puts you in a panic attack because you’re going to be putting up your child’s stocking that’s no longer here,” she said.
One way the family is coping is by putting up a “memory tree,” in addition to their Christmas tree, with ornaments on which are written “the most loving memories of that person. So you don’t make it so depressing for other family members but you do pause and honor that person.”
A key source of support has been the “core four”: Kristin Song’s sister, Cindy Cole; her best friend from high school, Gretchen Toussaint; Laurie Fasano and Laura Mitzafelt.
“I think we definitely went all in,” said Fasano. “We definitely did, but I think they would have made it regardless of us because they’re just like that. I never had to get Kristin out of bed.”
Fasano said two days after the tragedy she drove to the Songs at 6:30 on a very cold morning and found Kristin walking to an appointment. “I need to walk,” Song said. “We did a lot of walking … Every morning we walked miles and miles.
“In the beginning I would get the text at 1 o’clock in the morning and 3 o’clock in the morning and, lucky for her, I would wake up and answer her,” Fasano said.
On many mornings, the Songs would wake up to the smell of breakfast being made in the kitchen. Much of the food was organized by Mitzafelt.
Toussaint said, “I can honestly say this is absolutely the worst thing that has happened, not only to them but to our family as well. They were absolutely amazing people. People keep asking how they are, but they have handled this the best that anyone could in these circumstances.”
An educator in the New Haven schools, part of Toussaint’s contribution has been to research gun safety programs and said the Say Something curriculum will begin in Guilford High School in January. “We quickly switched from just looking at gun safety,” Toussaint said. “She was very excited and I think moving the ball forward is what’s getting her up every day.
“I’m just so proud of them, honestly,” she said. “Mike’s back to work. The way he was in the beginning caring for his family was unbelievable.”
Mike Song said he’s coped by trying multiple therapies, from a psychotherapist, who offered to see them for free, and medication to exercise, light therapy, smile therapy and yoga.
“And then I did an experimental therapy called brainspotting because I had read and heard that people from Sandy Hook found it to be the most effective therapy that they had encountered compared to like six or seven different therapies,” Song said. It was offered at the Resiliency Center of Newtown.
“So my only advice to parents who lose a child is do multiple therapies. They are all complementary: run, work out and see a therapist. It’s going to take more than … a little time to go by. Time’s not going to heal it. You’ve got to work on it every day. And that’s what we do. We do yoga, we do anything that can calm and bring some peace.”
They also moved to a house on the water in order to live in a quieter space away from reminders of the tragedy, which occurred about a mile from their former Norton Avenue home.
The Guilford community has stood behind the Songs, posting support on Simply Guilford and Ethan Song Acts of Kindness Facebook pages.
Mike Granata and Ray Pianka, like Kristin Song graduates of Guilford High School, put up Christmas lights outside Flutterby on Whitfield Street that say “SONGSTRONG” and “LOVE HOPE.”
“I thought it was wonderful,” said Beth O’Bymachow, owner of Flutterby, a clothing, accessories and gift store. “I thought it was a universal message around this time of year … and we thought that it would honor and show our support and kindness … for the families involved in this terrible tragedy.”
Finding out that Ethan’s story can make a difference in another child’s life has given the Songs a lift. Kristin Song said she recently received a handwritten letter from a boy, Gavin Taylor, who saw their press conference announcing the proposed Ethan’s Law on the news.
“If you ever need me to make more letters I am happy to do so,” Gavin wrote. “I want to pass Ethan’s law and here’s why. I am a 12 yr old boy who even though was raised well sometimes I still get caught up in things when I am around friends, so if a trusted adult took out a gun I would be okay with it. NOT GOOD! So by passing Ethans law many adults and children will stay safe. I really appreciate this because I see all the gun violence going on around me and its scary. So this law makes me feel alot more comfortable and safe when going to other peoples homes.”
“So I told him that if Ethan’s Law gets passed, I’m going to take him up” to the state Capitol for the signing, Kristin Song said.