Bullets? The case is never really closed

Case closed — or is it? The yellow tape has been removed, the street swept clean and the latest body buried. In some cases, the prosecution has rested its case, the person who pulled the trigger is put behind bars and police have moved on.

But for victims left behind after gun violence, the case is never really closed. Long after it strikes its intended victim, a bullet’s trajectory just keeps on going and buries itself in the memories it leaves behind — and each new bullet adds a new victim and a new memory.

And those memories and the post-traumatic stress disorder that develops and grips victims in their wake are what this column is all about.

I don’t have a degree in psychology that allows me to peep inside the doors in a person’s mind, but to me, PTSD is the new name for ghosts that escape the trapdoor where bad memories are kept. And they can revive the experience again and again — and there is nothing paranormal about them.

Most people associate PTSD with the military as the symptoms began to emerge with men and women returning from the Vietnam War during the 1970s. It was officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980.

But experts say PTSD is triggered by sights, sounds and smells, and doesn’t just happen to people leaving the battlefield. They now recognize it also has a dramatic effect on children who experience violent, traumatic incidents.

Children don’t forget the sound of gunfire, the sight of a dead body or the loss of a loved one, friend or community member to violence. And the memory can leave kids, youth and families with “heightened fears that harm could come at any time.”

There is nothing easy about raising kids, but doing so in a low-income urban environment brings in outside elements that are out of most parent’s control.

But one desperate mother from the other side of the United States is sending shockwaves through the legal community after filing a lawsuit that is being heralded as unique and could have far reaching consequences if successful.

Demetria Powell filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of her 9-year-old son and hundreds of other kids against the state of Illinois, its governor and the Illinois State Police.

She is charging them with failure to stem the unrelenting gun violence in her neighborhood by not implementing responsible policies to keep illegal guns off the street. She argues the trauma has caused her child and other children to develop cognitive and emotional disabilities.

What is unique about her lawsuit is that she argues these children must be accommodated under the Americans with Disabilities Act — and a federal judge agreed with her and in September allowed the lawsuit to proceed.

Win or lose, it is a novel approach to the problem of illegal guns and could break down a clash of wills that many see prevents sensible gun laws from being enacted.

Experts say community violence comes as a “sudden and terrifying shock” because “it is intentional” and that it can have a “lingering and devastating traumatic impact.”

Connecticut isn’t Illinois and we don’t have any urban cities that come close to seeing the carnage that guns produce in Chicago. But we don’t need to go to Chicago to know the damage that bullets bring and the PTSD they leave behind.

The mothers of Clinton Howell in Bridgeport, Tyrick Keyes in New Haven and Ebony Swaby in Stamford are just a few of the mothers here in the Nutmeg State still mourning the loss of their children to gun violence.

And now, Swaby’s mother, Darlene Avery-Lamar, is dealing with the loss of a nephew to gun violence.

“There’s no Tylenol that can take it away. There’s no therapy that can take it away,” she told Hearst Connecticut Media of her sister’s loss. “She will keep that feeling forever.”

Tara Donnelly-Gottlieb knows that feeling well. She was 10 years old when gun violence forever changed her life. It was 2005, when thieves broke into her parent’s jewelry store in Fairfield and shot them dead.

“You never get over having your parents murdered,” she said. “You never get over it. Never. It never gets better. It evolves but it comes back in waves.”

Donnelly-Gottlieb is a volunteer for CT Moms Demand Action, a nationwide organization whose mission is to “pass stronger gun laws and work to close the loopholes that jeopardize the safety of our families.”

She said she has read the story of Demetria Powell.

“I am a mother and I have so much empathy for mothers trying to protect their children,” she said. “They are stressed and scared and I commend these families.”

Donnelly-Gottlieb said rather than meeting the problem with guns headon, we’re “terrifying our kids with suburban lockdown drills to prevent someone coming to kill them.”

“We’re failing our children throughout the nation,” she said. “We are failing all of them.”

The former Bridgeport resident, who now lives in

Easton, and Bridgeport resident Laura Cabel have started CTMDA chapters in Bridgeport and Fairfield, where they are “assisting, listening and supporting” the groups already in place.

Every day, children in certain neighborhoods wake up to the crack of doom and every day, they arguably live and play inside a tomb where any one of them could be the next inscription added to the wall.

That is an anxious way to start the day.

On my podcast, “Real talk, Real people,” Rahisha Bevins, a former New Haven social worker, and Louis L. Reed, who works with #cut50, a nationwide, bipartisan criminal justice reform initiative, talked about the importance of having PTSD awareness introduced into schools.

“The more we put that in the school system, that’s the point where we can make a difference with these kids and help the families,” Bevins said. “It doesn’t mean teachers have to do it themselves, it means we raise their awareness and they work in partnership with mental health professionals to make sure the community is getting what it needs.”

All children are afraid of ghosts but the fear of the supernatural kind tends to go away.

But the ghosts of PTSD are very real.

And no trapdoor can hold them back or the consequences they bear.

Bullets? The case is never really closed.

Children don’t forget the sound of gunfire, the sight of a dead body or the loss of a loved one, friend or community member to violence.