Parkland parents, survivors visit Connecticut for screening

On a February afternoon in 2018, Manuel and Patricia Oliver received the news every parent dreads most. There was a disturbance at Stoneman Douglas, the high school in Parkland, Florida where their son, Joaquin went. Soon, they would learn the worst.

The Olivers visited Stamford this week joined by Fred Guttenberg, who also lost a child in the Parkland shooting, and two students who saw 17 of their classmates killed that day.

“Too many people in America believe that you are safer with a gun,” said Matt Deitsch, a Stoneman Douglas survivor.

The group was at The Avon Theatre on Wednesday night for the public premiere of “Parkland Rising,” a new documentary by parttime Redding resident and directorproducer Cheryl Horner McDonough. The 90minute film, executive produced by Katie Couric and rapper will.i.am, focuses on the groundswell of student activism following the 2018 shooting at Stoneman Douglas, as well as the impact it continues to have.

“I hope that it will show people what happened and that it’ll provide some education,” McDonough said at the screening, “but ultimately it’ll inspire people to take action.”

The film won the Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival where it premiered Oct. 4.

“We really need to make some changes,” said Mary Himes, cofounder of #UNLOAD, an artsbased initiative against gun violence that cosponsored the screening with The Avon and the University of ConnecticutStamford. Himes is the wife of U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, DGreenwich, who was also in attendance.

“Art helps us look,” #UNLOAD cofounder Helen During said. “Art helps us listen. But ultimately art helps us feel.”

After the screening, there was a panel discussion with the Parkland parents and student survivors Deitsch and Jammal Lemy, who became cofounders of the student activist group March for Our Lives, which has worked to slow the nation’s gun violence epidemic.

“When we finally got the opportunity, we took it and ran,” said Lemy.

Lemy said they were kids put into an adult situation as they embarked on political activism.

Deitsch said the movement is not about doing away with gun ownership, but promoting responsible measures in relation.

“The reality is that this is going to happen sooner or later,” said Manuel Oliver.

In response to the shooting, Oliver and his wife

Patricia formed a nonprofit, Change the Ref, to advance political change. Time has advanced gay rights and abated the power of big tobacco, Oliver said, and the goal is to do the same with gun safety.

“The good news here is that there’s a new America emerging,” he said.

Like Oliver, Guttenberg also created a nonprofit in memory of his daughter, Ribbons for Jaime, which supports programs that were important to her and ones pursuing commonsense gun safety reforms.

“Your vote matters,” Guttenberg told the 205plus attendees on Wednesday evening. “Show up and vote. We’re going to get this done.”

Jarret Liotta / For Hearst Connecticut Media The panelists include, from left, Fred Guttenberg, Patricia and Manuel Oliver, all three of whom lost children to gun violence in Parkland, Fla., and Matt Deitsch and Jammal Lemy, two students survivors of the shooting, at the public premiere of the documentary “Parkland Rising” at The Avon Theatre on Wednesday in Stamford.