Frankly, anyone who has seen the coverage, and this picture has been affected. So unbelievably sad. Its starting to sound like an entire classroom was shoot down. 27 dead and 18 were children. Sandy Hook Elementary is in Newtown, CT.
Come for the tea. Stay for the shade.
This just makes me cry…
I did not hear about it. So sad. So someone targeted an elementary class and started shooting? It makes you not want to leave the house or let your children go anywhere!
As a teacher, if anything like this happened to my students. I would …I would never be able to go back to work. I’m devasted. I need to stop watching this.
This is so sad. There is no excuse for any person to take the life of innocent children. Being a parent myself I cannot image the pain these parents are going through.,My hearts goes out to the parents that will be receiving the worst news of their lives. Lets keep them in our hearts as well as our prayers.
No words.
My heart is heavy for everyone affected. Thoughts and prayers for everyone.
Hug your babies extra tight, no matter how big or small. It’s heartbreaking and I have no words….
I saw the FB page of the shooter. Attractive clean cut looking kid. All of his facebook friends are in very good colleges or have good jobs. Very average FB, a video game, a theater he likes. News says no criminal background. Nothing odd on his FB. This is just bizarre. It’s going to be another one of those “he seemed like such a nice guy.” stories. This just freaks me out. I already have huge trust issues. I would probably have offered this guy a ride if his car broke down. I am never leaving the house again.
wow i was just looking through his page in fb and when getting to his “likes” page, got an error alert and it seems to be blocked now. in his pictures he does look like a normal kid with not that much of fb activity. this is crazy. prayers go out to the families of these children. what a horrible way to end the year.
Some are saying that is not the kid. But he was from Newtown and lived in Hoboken. I saw no FB activity after Dec 9 when the page went down. But on twitter there is a screencap circulating that is supposedly him saying it wasn’t him. He was at work and headed home. But I don’t really believe that screencap being tweeted. I was on the actual page and that was not there.
This is truly horrifying. You just never know when that stranger comes up to you at work, the store, the school, the bank…if he’s unhinged & looking to make this the last day of your life. One cannot live in fear but when children are involved every precaution is still not enough.
I am sick just thinking about monsters in this world willing to terrorize & kill innocents. I’m with you Tamara, it’s devastating. How can everyone not be affected?
A high school in Winter Park, Florida, was “under a modified lockdown” yesterday because someone posted a threat to “shoot up the place” on Facebook. This was the second school lockdown in Central Florida this week after a Facebook threat. I’m glad I’m not a kid these days.
I live so close to Winter Park High school and I had not heard this. My heart hurts physically feels so heavy. The slaying of innocents the little kindergartners and their beloved teachers trying to protect them. This goes beyong heart breaking, it is soul shattering. How will those families cope? There are no words to express or to comfort them.
So wrong.
Edited because the name of the shooter has not been released by law enforcement and there is a lot of confusion about who it was.
hey Tamara…..so yes that was his brothers fb page! ugh…sick bastard
Even when they actually confirm the name of the shooter. Please don’t post it here. Thanks.
I am so sad for these families. I will continue to pray for every victim of this tragedy.
Thank you, Dear Lord, for our friends and families. We raise all of the victims up to Your loving arms and embrace. We are confused and saddened, Lord, and pray that You restore humanity and bring comfort to those who need it most. We continue to pray, Holy Father, for your wisdom, love and protection. In Jesus name, Amen.
I am absolutely shaken to the core. Shaken. Those poor families.
Every update to this story is worse than the one before. It’s horrific.
There needs to be a fucking ban on assault rifles. Today is utterly devastating. I’m laying beside my napping 2 year old right now and can’t fathom how the mothers are feeling. Devastating.
So shocking. So tragic. My heart and thoughts are with those families.
I just keep thinking about teachers everywhere having to go to work next week and answer questions. The teachers at Sandy Hook. I know that whole town is devastated. But teachers are trained for things like this and there will be a lot of teachers questioning if they could have done more. I know I would be. I’m rambling. Obviously it wasn’t the day any of us would care to see more pictures of Nene or talk about surrogacy..I kind of just shut the blog down for the day.
Hug your babies if you have them.
I keep imagining those poor babies, and those parents arriving to the scene only to be told their sons and daughters didn’t get out…I feel like throwing up. I just can’t even wrap my head around this. This breaks my heart. I don’t even know anything anymore.
Tamara a tragedy like this makes you want to hug your child no matter how old they are. I still remember watching the news on September 11 in total horror. I lived in PA at the time and thought okay at least my son is safe at school so I won’t panic and race over there, better to just not have him see this on TV. I offered up a prayer to God thanking him for our living in a small town in PA far enough away from NY that my child was safe. Then the plane hit in PA and I just about lost my mind. I remember racing to the school and meeting up with a ton of other parents in the parking lot who all raced to pick up their kids so they could hold them.
In the end as I watched scared children being dragged out of school by hysterical parents I got a grip and decided that I would let my son stay in school for the day to keep his world as sane and normal as I could. I did however get a visitor pass and sat my ass right inside the front office area because I didn’t want him to ride the school bus home.
Over the next few years, I did that race to school again and again when somebody (turned out to be a student) decided to have fun and called in bomb scares every few weeks. Each time I heard the news my heart would be in my throat as I would race to the school in panic and with tears streaming down my face at the sheer terror of the possibility that this time would be the real thing and I would never see my child again.
When I heard the news on Friday, all the memories of my moments of terror and panic came back full force as if is was happening right now…and it was happening but it was not to me, it was to other parents of 20 beautiful little angels. I have shed a lot of tears since hearing the news and my heart just aches for all those parents whether they lost their child or not. Each one felt a terror in their heart and mind that no parent should ever have to feel and certainly no parent should have to come out of that moment and know that it is real, it is not just a threat….their child is gone.
Dear Lord I went to church this morning and prayed with the rest of my church that these families will one day know peace. My child is now a grown man who works in a high school. I called him relentlessly until I could hear his voice and tell him I loved him and my sweet child had heard about Newtown and also remembered those days when I had raced to school to try to protect him and he quietly told me “Mom it’s okay, I am alright, don’t cry” and of course that just made me cry more.
I have stayed off twitter pretty much since Friday, every time I came on it wouldn’t be long before I would hear of some asshole threatening to boycott the funerals, disrespect those who lost their lives and those wonderful adults who gave their lives to try to save the kids that they loved. I saw too many people argue that we don’t need gun control and I thought I should just step away and deal with my pain and my memories…but most of all to continue my prayers for all those affected by this senseless violence and cruelty.
Thank you Tamara for providing a place for people to express their profound sense of loss and pain.
The person orginally identified as the shooter was at his job in Manhattan today and didn’t find anything out until people were saying he was supposedly the shooter. Then he realizes his mother is dead. Then it dawns on him that it was his younger disabled brother that did it and that he shot 20 kindergarteners. The police showed up at his apt thinking there was another body there. There wasn’t. He had no clue about anything. He was taken to precinct in handcuffs where he found out all the grisly details. I feel so sorry for this guy.
Yeah, I felt bad for him too. Plus he’s now ‘labelled.’ How do you forget that he’s the brother of the guy who did this?
I wondered whether you’d be more affected as a teacher. Hang in there….
Thanks, NAA. I am sure all teachers who love their students are devastated. Though I worked with some that I honestly believe would just be glad to have some time off to plan their weddings or whatever else they preferred to do rather than connect with their kids.
ALso Piers Morgan needs to shut the fuck up about gun laws in a country he is not a citizen of. What a condescending asshole.
Did you see the video of the brother on FB (the one they organically thought was the shooter) teaching his cat to sit. Most killers do not like animals. I thought he didn’t seem like a killer. Turns out, he wasn’t … but, his younger brother is.
An unbelievably sad, sad day!
I’m amazed at the number of people still asking me questions about the Real Housewives today. Really?
Good elementary teachers spend 8 hours a day with your kids. They know them inside and out. I know I cried every year that my kids were going to someone else the next year. I never felt like the next batch would be as “good” as the ones I was sending on. We spend more time with your kids than you do. The good ones, love the kids next door, especially the ones the teachers send to our rooms for discipline problems. We love the ones we share recess time with. We love the ones in the class we do reading partners with. I especially love the cute little kindergarten kids who we read to, who bring us nasty concotions they have made with all their tiny germy fingers.
I can’t imagine if I still had to go to work on Monday and discuss this tragedy with my babies. I surely can’t imagine the teachers at this school having to go back to their babies. I just can’t.imagine. What are you supposed to say?
I probably would not say much and we would be doing a lot of journaling and drawing. If your kids are exposed to this, and connected give them a journal. Give them some crayons. They will let you know what is going on with them.
Today, I want to hug every kid I have ever taught.
I’ve officially turned off my tv. Cannot watch anymore today. Kindergarten students are 5-6 years old, right?!? I took 2 of my grand babies (3-5 years old) to the park last weekend, and they wanted me to watch them swing, run and play on the jungle gym, “Watch me! Look what I can do!”
I cannot stop crying and cannot stop thinking about those babies.
Praying for the families affected by this violent act…Even the shooters family. Thank you Tamara for giving us this site to post our thoughts today.
I have a 5yr old in kindergarten,this is a parents worst nightmare.I have been bursting into tears all day just thinking about the parents and the babies that are no longer here.Here at our small town of three thousand folks a couple yrs ago two teens killed a teacher to get into a gang.Took awhile for our town to recover,now this I’m having anxiety just thinking of sending my child to school on monday…God give the people of Newton strength.
I’m just amazed that people are posting here in other threads arguing about celeb gossip bullshit. I am amazed that Kandi Burruss PR guy is taking issue with me including her in a bump of bravolebrities still hawking their bullshit on twitter After I asked Kandi, “HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEWS TODAY?” after she is RTing FunkyDineva (who I love) videos seemingly oblivious to the real world.
DonJuan@donjuannc
@TamaraTattles @Kandi @FunkyDineva @VH1 your timeline is RTS of everyone else and we are not judging asking have you watched the news
Kim Z is hawking her Moscato…
Some, not all, RHOBH are off to parties asking for hair tips.. really?
Yes Don Juan, my last 20 or so tweets are retweets by Bravo idiots who don’t know when to stop being disrespectful on twitter. And Yes, I have watched and tweeted about the news all day. I maintain my position that when 20 kindergarterners die it’s not a great day to be oblivious and RT a funky DInerva video no matter how much I love him.
Why would you expect the completely self-involved to behave differently?
I’m only surprised they didn’t find a way to make the tragedy about themselves.
To be honest TT, I had to stop watching yesterday. It’s so heart wrenching. All we can do is pray for the victims and their families. We can also start talking about gun control. Might be too far gone now but we do need to reconsider gun laws in our country. We aren’t safe going anywhere anymore. Who would think a gunman would come into a school of little kids and take aim at them and shoot them dead? Little kindergarten aged kids. America is fucked if we don’t make some major changes. Mental health services is also something that needs to be revisited. Each mass shooting gets more horrific and incomprehensible. My heart breaks for the families. Preparing for Christmas…now they’re preparing for a funeral. Life is so fucked up.
So sad to see this today (well, yesterday now that it’s 5 past midnight). I cried. Could not believe those innocent children and wonderful teachers. I keep thinking what is this world coming to, but then I remembered a wonderful thing that someone did for our family just a few days ago. You have to keep your hope up. Prayers for all those families who lost loved ones today. Such tragic!
I can’t watch the coverage. If something like this happened to one of my children, I would lose my mind. I would probably kill myself. I teach middle school, and when we run through tornado and fire drills, we also have to run through lockdown drills. It’s terrifying to see these things and think how easily it can happen to you.
I know the next lockdown drill in every school will have teachers being damn sure they have picked the best corner to hide the kids.
They put the wrong mans name up and apparently he got the shock of his life. They are also putting the fathers name and picture on the news. It’s an invasion of privacy. I this they are being more cautious about releasing the victims name.
On Monday, these teachers and students are expected to return! These teachers are real heroes and went above and beyond. Thank you for your commitment and dedication.
I didn’t know a thing about this until I left my school at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. Then it was a good 15 minutes before I could figure out what the news guys on my radio were talking about. You’d think someone would have said something. I was even in the front office twice on my way out. They must think I am one callous bitch with my smiling “have a great weekend” on the way out.
I am not looking forward to Monday. We already have an email about the lockdown and fire drills we’ll be having next week. I am not feeling very secure about the portable where I have my students. But I guess it’s better than the other portables that have one whole wall of windows.
All those parents who brought Christmas gifts and will nvr get to give them out.This is the first time Ive personally watched a story and just cried