Monsters Among Us

Source: ABCNews.com

Imagine waking up this Friday morning and you get your kids ready for school as usual.  You help them pick out their outfit, make them breakfast, help them brush their teeth and then you either stand with them at the bus stop or drop them off to school.  Or maybe, you don't have kids.  Imagine your spouse is a teacher or school administrator.  You kiss them good-bye and wish them a good day at work.  Never in your wildest dreams do you think this will be the last time you'll get to see them alive.

Well, for many folks that's exactly what happened today.  Around 9:30 this morning, two gunmen decided that they would vent their frustrations out on the staff and innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.  One gunman entered his child's kindergarten class and just opened fire on the class. I shiver thinking about how shocked and scared the teacher must have looked when she saw this man wearing 4 guns and bullet proof vest entering her classroom.  Did she scream? Did she run to cover kids using her body as a human shield?

Then I think about those poor kids.  Did they even know what was happening?  When they first saw him enter their classroom did they think his guns were real or did they think he was playing dress up?  (When I was younger the police would dress up and bring in fake guns to talk to us about gun safety and saying no to violence.)  And then my heart breaks as I wonder how many of those little darlings ran and hid under desks or chairs to escape the spray of bullets.

Y'all, I used to work in a school.  And hearing about this shooting and seeing the scene unfold on tv just made me cry.  I loved all of my former students just like they were my own children.  I couldn't imagine some monster coming into my classroom with guns and shooting at us.  Like this hits close to home for me on so many levels.

Then, hearing account from an actual Sandy Hook student about how they heard one of office personnel try to make an announcement over the intercom  and then to hear her scream followed by gun shoots, from the second gunman I'm assuming, and then the intercom goes silent just....  I don't even have words.

When this story first broke, they were reporting the first shooter to be one of the students since the gunman was inside the classroom.  But as it turns out, the gunman wasn't a child but the parent of a child.  I felt a little relief because the thought of thinking that a kindergartner could have such rage or evil inside themselves to plan an attack on their classroom was just blowing my mind!!  But that relief was short lived.

Like what kind of monster parent do you have to be that if your child is having issues with the school, you can't go through the chain of command to get it fixed?  How hard could it have been to request a conference with the teacher, talk with the principal, connect the school board or even make a statement to the local news station if what happened was so extreme and horrible that you felt the need to shoot up the school and then enlist the help of a friend or fellow parent.   And even more confusing is how do you talk another parent or friend into helping you kill KIDS?!!!

I don't condone violence of any kind, but if you have a problem with me as a teacher or feel I've wronged your child to the point of driving you to kill, then I'd rather you just kill me and leave the kids alone.  Kids should be off limits for anything negative-killing, robbing, bullying, etc.  I know the world isn't perfect and crimes are going to happen, but why do these grown people have to go after the kids?!!

It takes a cold, unfeeling, walking dead monster to do such a thing.  I can't even call people who hurt and kill kids human beings.  You can't be human and look into the terrified eyes of a child, crying and screaming and trying to run from you and still shoot them.  You just can't!  Schools are suppose to be sort of a home from home, but how can students feel safe and protected when you have things like this that happen?

And let me just say that the fact that these gunmen were young (18-25ish) is just going to further the stereotypes and stigma associated with young parents.  I've already seen a few tweets about the fact that the first gunman being a young parent played a parent in his decision.  As a young parent, I don't believe that's true.  Any parent has stress when they have kids.  And yea, maybe your stress is a little stronger, but at the end of the day you're still an adult.  

It's still your job to behave and conduct yourself as such.  And a true adult does not do what these men did today.  I refuse to let accept any excuse that is made for these two doing what they did.  There is none that would be acceptable in my book.

Folks, hug, kiss and tell your children and loved ones that you love them.  More importantly pray for the families in Newtown.  They are going to need a miracle to recover from this tragic event.  If you're close by or know someone directly affected, just be there for them.  Cook meals, hold hands, give hugs, or offer a shoulder.

Then pray for these monsters that hide among us.  Pray that they never come in contact with our loved ones. Pray that police catch the gunmen who is still on the loose.  Pray that justice is served.  The violence and killing of innocent people has to STOP!!