‘The American way of life’
Activists: ‘We’re desensitized’ to mall shootings
DANBURY – The shooting injury of a 15-year-old girl inside the Danbury Fair mall Wednesday that sent scores of shoppers fleeing for cover is not the kind of mass casualty crime that will make national news.
And that’s part of the problem, local gun violence prevention activists said.
“Because it wasn’t a mass shooting in the suburbs, we won’t pay national attention to it but we should pay national attention to it because these types of shootings happen every day – and mostly in communities of color,” said Jeremy Stein, executive director of nonprofit Connecticut Against Gun Violence. “We are grateful that no one died but this is indicative of the real problem of gun violence in this country, because shootings like these are happening all the time in communities like Bridgeport and New Haven.”
The mother of a child slain in the Sandy Hook massacre agreed.
“We’ve become desensitized because this keeps happening over and over and over again in so many places in our country,” said Nicole Hockley, co-founder and managing director of the Newtown-based nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise. “It’s become a part of the American way of life, which is unacceptable. We have to fight this passive acceptance that says gun violence is okay.”
The activists were decrying an active shooter scene Wednesday night at one of Connecticut’s most popular indoor malls, which filled the news feeds of kids and parents here and in nearby
New York.
Two groups on mall video were involved in a confrontation near Macy’s about 7 p.m. when a boy in his “early teens” with a gun fired one shot at the other group, shooting the girl in the chest, city police said. Both groups ran out of the mall, leaving the girl to be rushed to the hospital, where her injury was not thought to be life-threatening.
Abbey Clements’ 19-yearold son had left work at the mall two just two hours earlier.
Clements, a teacher at Sandy Hook School in 2012 when a gunman shot his way into the building and killed 26 first-graders and educators, remembers telling her son, who was 11 at the time, that “a shooter has been in my classroom – I’m OK and my students are OK.’ ”
She said her son’s eyes were opened at 11 years old to the prevalence of American gun violence, growing up with his peers in a “lockdown culture.”
“My son has friends and colleagues he works with now who have stories of not knowing whether they were going to make it out of the mall alive,” said Clements who volunteers with the nonprofit Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
“This is what we’re doing to our kids,” Clements said. “The level of trauma that we accept in this country due to gun violence is shocking.”
Stein’s wife and son were across the street from the mall on Danbury’s west side when they heard there was an active shooter and texted Stein to ask whether they should stay put or drive away.
“They didn’t know what
would put them in greater harm,” Stein said. “We live in a world now where going shopping for school supplies might get you killed.”
State Rep. Raghib AllieBrennan, D-Bethel, said a 15-year-old should be able to go to the mall without being a victim of gun violence.
“We’re failing our youth,” he told The News-Times. “This is a societal issue, not a political one.”
Stein agreed.
“Until we do something about the ease of access to firearms, and providing adequate resources for communities and young people, we are going to continue to see these shootings.”