‘It became so real:’ Stopping gun violence focus of forum
In March 2017, about 3,000 Greenwich High School students were placed on a threehour lockdown, after a threatening message was found written in a bathroom stall.
Some students fled the student center, while others hid and cried in darkened classrooms; many sent text messages to loved ones.
“When we looked back at the pictures, chairs were thrown everywhere” said Amelia Thornton, who a junior at GHS. “The fact that it became so real in that moment, it really changed a lot of students that lived through it.”
Thornton spoke Tuesday night at a gun violence prevention community conversation in the Greenwich Library’s Cole Auditorium. Although no one was physically harmed during the March 2017 incident, Thornton said she believes Greenwich High students now take lockdown drills more seriously, and realize a shooting could happen anywhere, even in their own high school.
On Tuesday night, she sat on stage alongside freshman Isabella Harper; Lucy Arecco, GHS Bella House administrator; Kay Maxwell, former president of the Connecticut League of Women Voters; and Nicole Hockley, co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise.
The conversation, “Knowing the Signs, Programs and Practices to Prevent Gun Violence,” sponsored by the National League of Women Voters, discussed the work of the nonprofit group Sandy Hook Promise to prevent gun-related deaths.
Hockley started the organization after her 6-year-old son Dylan died in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting with 19 other students and six educators.
“The most sensible thing to me was to get involved in helping to ensure that no one would experience what I experienced, and over time it’s also evolved to ensure that students don’t ever experience the devastation caused by a school shooting,” Hockley said.
After co-founding the organization with Mark Barden, the father of another student killed at Sandy Hook, and Tim Makris, a Newtown resident, they first focused on policy and lobbying for universal background checks on gun buyers. When that effort failed in April 2013, she decided to learn more about the gun violence prevention by studying the causes of the phenomenon as well as laws and policy.
“What this movement was currently missing at a national level was education, was programs, was grassroots voice and tangible experience,” Hockley said. At the time, she was reading that in most school shootings and teen suicides, the individual displays signs of violence before the incident occurs.
“We knew from the FBI and Secret Service that if we could train people on how to recognize these signs and signals, and then give them to tools to create interventions, that we could make a difference,” she said. “It’s not a political issue. It’s about keeping kids safe. And anyone who has children in their lives and indeed are kids themselves, want to be safe. So, why not give them those tools?”
The “See Something, Say Something” program has trained 7.5 million people since its inception and is active in 14,000 schools nationwide, Hockley said. Some states have expressed interest in adding the Sandy Hook Promise’s training in all middle and high schools, Hockley said.
At Greenwich High School, all 3,000 students are trained in the program that encourages youth to tell an adult if they’re concerned about the suspicious behavior of another student or anyone.
A year ago, the League of Women Voters encouraged Arecco to attend a discussion about the “See Something, Say Something” training in town. Last October, it was incorporated at Greenwich High with the hope that all incoming freshmen will be trained. The school has an anonymous alerts system, in which students can submit information about suspicious activity to administrators.
“It’s definitely utilized,” said Arecco. “The training certainly put it at the forefront of kids’ minds.”
Sandy Hook Promise also has an anonymous tip line where anyone can report questionable activity across the country. Since the tip line was launched in March, the organization has received 25,000 tips. In addition to gun violence, they also hear about other problems such as bullying, substance abuse, cutting and dating violence — all issues that require intervention, Hockley said.
The organization’s efforts paid off last month, when a juvenile in Seymour was charged with first-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace after fellow students, who took the “See Something, Say Something” training, reported suspicious behavior. Shootings in Texas and Pennsylvania were averted because of the organization’s training and awareness efforts, Hockley said.
Although the number of school shootings is climbing steadily, she said the acts are preventable. Often after mass shootings, those who know the perpetrator speak out and say that the individual displayed suspicious behavior, or that they knew it was coming, Hockley said.
Harper, the GHS freshman, said she hoped residents would spread awareness about Sandy Hook Promise by telling their loved ones about the “See Something, Say Something” program. “It’s like the ripple effect. The more people who know, the more people are aware, the less it’s going to happen,” she said.
Those interested in donating or working with the organization, can visit sandyhookpromise.com.