Newtown task force: Tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School, rebuild on same site

Road signs near the entrance of Sandy Hook Elementary School, Dec. 16, 2012. (Dylan Stableford/Yahoo News)

NEWTOWN, Conn.—After weeks of emotional, sometimes-contentious debate, a task force charged with deciding the future of Sandy Hook Elementary School recommended tearing down the school and building a new one on the same property where a gunman killed 26 people—including 20 children—in December in one of the worst school massacres in U.S. history.

The 28-person task force of elected officials voted unanimously for the plan, which was submitted to the Newtown Board of Education. It will now have to be approved by both the school board and residents at an upcoming referendum.

Sandy Hook Elementary School has remained closed since the Dec. 14 shootings. In January, the 430 surviving students were relocated to Chalk Hill School, a retrofitted facility in nearby Monroe.

[Related: Task force meets to decide future of Sandy Hook Elementary School]

Last week at a tense town meeting, officials struggled to come to an agreement on a plan, narrowing the choices to three: renovating the existing structure; building on a new site; or a new Sandy Hook Elementary School at its current location—the plan they ultimately settled on.

"I will chain my body to it and to protest if they try to reopen it," Erica Lafferty, daughter of slain Sandy Hook Elementary School principal Dawn Hochsprung, told NBC's Hartford affiliate after last week's meeting. "It should be knocked down. There should be some type of long-lasting memorial. I don't want people to walk into the building and say, 'Oh well, that's where Erica's mom got gunned down.' That's not OK."

Brian Engel, whose 6-year-old daughter, Olivia, died in the shootings, told the task force he didn't want Olivia's younger brother to have to walk into the building where the massacre took place: "We do want him to go to Sandy Hook School, but at an alternate location—not where his sister died."

[Slideshow: Scenes from Newtown, Dec. 14-21, 2012]

Other parents disagreed. "It's not the building that was the problem," Steven Uhde, the father of a Sandy Hook second grader, said at the May 3 meeting. "It was someone in the wrong frame of mind."

The task force knew it would not be able to please everyone.

"There's no solution that's going to be 100 percent acceptable to any population," Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra said in April at the panel's first meeting. "There's no perfect solution here. The perfect solution for the town of Newtown would be if this didn't happen to us."

The task force reviewed 40 possible locations for Sandy Hook Elementary, including its current location on Riverside Road.

"The most important thing is that we don't get redistricted," Peter Baressi, a first responder and father of a Sandy Hook first-grader, said in April. "We are part of Newtown."

[Also read: ‘The Ducks of Sandy Hook’ go viral, helping Newtown children heal]

The panel did have something of a road map. Columbine High School in Colorado, where 12 students and one teacher were killed by gunmen 1999, removed the library where most of the victims died and replaced it with an atrium. Virginia Tech "converted a classroom building where a student gunman killed 32 people in 2007 into a peace studies and violence prevention center," the AP said. At West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania, officials built a new school several hundred yards away after a gunman killed five girls there in 2006.

And at California's Oikos University, where seven people were killed in 2012, the classroom where they were slain is now "used only for theology classes," NBC News noted.

Officials estimate the cost of constructing the new school will be between $47 million and $59 million. If approved, the new school could open as early 2016.

"It certainly opens the door to a path toward healing that was not there before," Newtown deputy planning director Rob Sibley told the Hartford Courant. "[But] it doesn't detract from the grief we feel on a daily basis."

"We can make that site love again," Uhde added.

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From Boston to Newtown to Aurora and beyond: Obama’s sad role as national grief counselor

By Walter Shapiro

Just moments after he raised his right hand to take the oath of office at a time of economic despair in 2009, Barack Obama spoke of the resilience of the American people. In that first inaugural address, Obama paraphrased the lyrics from a 1930s Fred Astaire musical as he declared, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

Thursday afternoon, at a memorial service in Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama invoked the story of 78-year-old marathoner Bill Iffrig who was knocked off his feet by the bomb blast just 15 feet from the finish line. Talking of the resilience of Boston and America in the face of harrowing violence, Obama said, “We may be momentarily knocked off our feet, but we’ll pick ourselves up. We’ll keep going. We will finish the race.”

Obama was very careful with his language, describing “this heinous act” and the perpetrators as “small, stunted individuals.” The president never mentioned “terrorism” or referred to foreign threats, but he pointedly used the verb “terrorize.” The president’s words were a way of gliding over all the public uncertainty surrounding the bombings and their cause. It was probably wiser and definitely more uplifting for the president to celebrate Boston and its gritty, yet intellectual self-image than to dwell on the fear unleashed on Patriot’s Day.

This has been a harrowing week for Obama. All the emotion that flowed from his last memorial service for the victims in Newtown led to defeat and dejection with the expected—yet still brutal—Senate rejection of expanded background checks for gun buyers Wednesday afternoon. Even the memory of 20 dead small children was not enough to turn the legislative tide. As Obama put it Wednesday, not bothering to mask his anger over vote, “This was a pretty shameful day for Washington.”

Grief counseling is not mentioned in the Constitution, nor does it ever come up in presidential debates. But part of the job of any president in this already tear-stained century is to channel our collective sadness, to speak for all Americans at a time of national tragedy.

Obama was still in the first year of his presidency when he said during a memorial service at Fort Hood after the shootings there, “We pay tribute to 13 men and women who were not able to escape the horror of war, even in the comfort of home.” In 2011, at a memorial service for the victims of the shootings in a Tucson parking lot, Obama sadly admitted, “There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts.”

Last year, in response to the massacre in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, Obama said, “If there’s anything to take away from this tragedy, it’s the reminder that life is very fragile. Our time here is limited and it is precious.” And at the memorial service for the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Obama said, “Here in Newtown, I come to offer the love and the prayers of a nation. I am very mindful that mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts.”

Yes, there is a sameness to much of Obama’s funereal oratory. The fault lies not with the president or the White House speechwriters, but with the limits of human speech at a time of grief. These are the same limitations that Abraham Lincoln referred to in 1863 when he dedicated a national cemetery at Gettysburg near where nearly 8,000 soldiers died: “We cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”

The difference, of course, is that Lincoln was speaking on a military battlefield, while Obama as president has been primarily mourning those killed at home following everyday pursuits—watching a famous race, attending a leafy elementary school, going to the movies or meeting with their congresswoman in a supermarket parking lot. Each innocent setting makes the carnage crueler and more macabre.

The three deaths and the scores of maimed bodies at the finish line in Boston also speak to the profound uncertainty of our age. Was this a new front in the war that toppled the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001? Or was this the latest reminder (as if we needed one after Newtown and Aurora) that Americans are a violent people—and that walking among us are individuals with crazed grievances and a warped desire to inflict pain, suffering and death.

The hair-trigger mood was symbolized Wednesday by the wildly wrong rumors about an impending arrest that were legitimized by major news organizations like the Associated Press and CNN. To be charitable, it was almost as if amid our fears, the news media abandoned traditional rules of reliable sourcing in a desperate effort to add a note of the-worst-is-over calm to our continuing anguish.

Politicians and the media often give way to an irresistible impulse to automatically brand any horrific act “terrorism.” In the immediate aftermath of Monday’s bloodbath, Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, flatly said, “My understanding is that it’s a terrorist incident.” Two Maine senators, Susan Collins and Angus King—both members of the Intelligence Committee—were even more unequivocal, saying that the bombings “bear the hallmarks of a terrorist attack.”

Using the word “terrorism” before there is any certainty that the attack had any remote connection with an organized group—let alone the remnants of al-Qaida—can only fan frightening memories of 9/11 and Oklahoma City. That is why Obama’s restraint today in Boston and in his prior remarks at the White House has been admirable. The images of dead bodies and maimed limbs on Boylston Street are wrenching enough without politicians in Washington resorting to rhetorical fear-mongering.

Obama ended his 20-minute reflections with a passionate affirmation of an open society where “we come together to celebrate life, to walk our cities and to cheer for our teams.” As the nation’s first truly urban president since John Kennedy, Obama instinctively understands the vibrancy of cities like Boston. That may be why he places such a high premium on living without fear amid the hubbub of the Hub. And in the resilience of Bostonians and all Americans.

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Obama, With Newtown Families, Demands Gun Control Vote

Obama, With Newtown Families, Demands Gun Control Vote

Speaking before families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, President Obama made an impassioned and urgent plea for stricter gun laws, as he accused Republicans of threatening to use "political stunts" to block reforms.

"This is not about politics. This is about doing the right thing for all the families who are here that have been torn apart by gun violence," the president told a packed crowd at the University of Hartford, just 50 miles from the site of the December shooting in Newtown, Conn. "It's about them, and all the families going forward so we can prevent this from happening again. That's what it's about."

Obama's visit to Connecticut comes at the start of a critical week, as the Senate is expected to debate the president's gun control agenda. While there are signs of agreement to expand background checks, two major parts of the president's plan, a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, seem unlikely to pass.

In a rousing, campaign-style speech the president warned lawmakers not to use political tactics to prevent the Senate from voting on gun reform measures, arguing that they have an obligation to the victims of gun violence.

"If our democracy's working the way it's supposed to and 90 percent of the American people agree on something, in the wake of a tragedy, you'd think this would not be a heavy lift," Obama said of the broad support for background checks. "And yet some folks back in Washington are already floating the idea that they may use political stunts to prevent votes on any of these reforms."

Obama's warning comes as a group of 13 Republican lawmakers are threatening to block a vote on gun control legislation.

"They're saying they'll do everything they can to even prevent any votes on these provisions. They're saying your opinion doesn't matter and that's not right. That is not right," Obama said, as the crowd took to its feet, chanting "we want a vote!"

Nearly four months since the tragedy in Newtown, the president promised the parents of the slain children that "we will not walk away from the promises we've made."

"We want you to know that we're here with you," he said. "We are as determined as ever to do what must be done."

Before his remarks, the president met privately with several families of children who died in the Sandy Hook shooting. Many of those families then boarded Air Force One on their way to Washington to lobby Congress.

"If there's even one thing we can do to protect our kids, don't we have an obligation to try? If there's even one step we can take to keep somebody from murdering dozens of innocents in the span of minutes, shouldn't we be taking that step? If there's just one thing we can do to keep one father from having to bury his child, isn't that worth fighting for?" Obama said.

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Connecticut governor signs strict gun law after Newtown shooting

(Reuters) - Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy is expected on Thursday to sign a tough new gun law that restricts sales of the sort of high-capacity ammunition clips that a gunman used to massacre 26 people in minutes in a December attack on a school.

Lawmakers in the state's Democratic-controlled House approved the measure, which supporters described as one of the toughest such laws in the United States, early on Thursday morning. The Senate approved the measure hours earlier.

The House debate stretched past midnight, with opponents of the law arguing that it infringed on the rights to gun ownership protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and that efforts to prevent attacks such as the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting should focus on providing better mental-health services.

Connecticut's law passed hours after Maryland's House of Delegates on Wednesday approved their own gun law, which also limits magazine size and requires that gun buyers be fingerprinted.

Connecticut's Malloy, who had advocated for the law, is expected to sign it at midday on Thursday.

The Connecticut law also requires background checks for private gun sales, expands the number of guns covered by the state's assault-weapons ban and establishes a $15 million fund to help schools improve security infrastructure.

It bans the sale of ammunition clips that hold 10 bullets or more and requires owners of such clips to register them by January 1. After that date, owning an unregistered high-capacity clip will become a felony offense.

A poll released on Thursday found that 91 percent of voters support regulations requiring all gun buyers to undergo background checks. However, 48 percent of all respondents and 53 percent of those owning guns said those checks could lead to the government's confiscating legally owned weapons.

That Quinnipiac University poll of 1,711 registered voters was conducted from March 26 to April 1 and had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Obama: 'Shame on us' if Congress forgets Newtown

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama pressed Congress on Thursday not to forget the heartbreak of the Newtown elementary school massacre and "get squishy" on tightened gun laws, though some lawmakers in his own Democratic Party remain a tough sell on an approaching Senate vote to expand purchasers' background checks.

"Shame on us if we've forgotten," Obama said at the White House, standing amid 21 mothers who have lost children to shootings. "I haven't forgotten those kids."

More than three months after 20 first-graders and six staffers were killed in Newtown, Conn., Obama urged the nation to pressure lawmakers to back what he called the best chance in over a decade to tame firearms violence.

At the same time, gun control groups were staging a "Day to Demand Action" with more than 100 rallies and other events planned from Connecticut to California. This was on top of a $12 million TV ad campaign financed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that has been pressuring senators in 13 states to tighten background-check rules.

But if political momentum was building after the nightmarish December shootings, it has flagged as the Senate prepares to debate gun restrictions next month. Thanks to widespread Republican resistance and a wariness by moderate Democrats from Southern and Western states — including six who are facing re-election next year — a proposed assault weapons ban seems doomed and efforts to broaden background checks and bar high capacity ammunition magazines are in question.

In one statement that typifies moderate Democrats' caution, spokesman Kevin Hall said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is "still holding conversations with Virginia stakeholders and sorting through issues on background checks" and proposals on assault weapons and magazines.

In stronger language this week, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said, "I do not need someone from New York City to tell me how to handle crime in our state. I know that we can go after and prosecute criminals without the need to infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding North Dakotans."

Expanding federal background checks to private sales at gun shows and online is the gun-control effort's centerpiece and was the focus of Obama's remarks. The system, designed to block criminals and the mentally disturbed from getting firearms, currently applies only to transactions by licensed gun dealers.

The National Rifle Association opposes the expansion, citing a threat that it could bring federal registries of gun owners, which would be illegal. The NRA says what is needed is better enforcement of the existing system, which it says criminals too easily circumvent.

Democratic sponsors are sure to need 60 votes to prevail — a daunting hurdle since the party has just 53 of the Senate's 100 seats, plus two Democratic-leaning independents. In a sign of potential trouble ahead, six Democrats backed a failed GOP proposal last week that would have required 60 votes for all future bills restricting guns.

"The week after Newtown, we thought it would be a tough road to 60 votes but we'd get there," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that Bloomberg helps lead. "Three months after Newtown, it looks like a tough slog but we'll get there."

Exactly how they can achieve that has yet to be demonstrated, with Obama's turn Thursday as arm-twister-in-chief underscoring the political pressure that proponents feel is needed 104 days after the Newtown killings.

"Now's the time to turn that heartbreak into something real," said Obama. While not naming the NRA, he chided opponents for trying to "make all our progress collapse under the weight of fear and frustration, or their assumption is that people will just forget about it."

NRA officials are unyielding in their opposition, with spokesman Andrew Arulanandam saying, "We have a politically savvy and a loyal voting bloc, and the politicians know that."

Obama and his backers find themselves in an unusual position — struggling to line up votes for a proposal that polls show the public overwhelmingly supports.

An Associated Press-GfK poll in January found 84 percent support for expanding background checks to include gun show sales. Near-universal checks have received similar or stronger support in other national surveys.

Polls in some Southern states have been comparable. March surveys by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found more than 9 in 10 people in Florida and Virginia backing expanded background checks, the same margin found in February by an Elon University Poll in North Carolina.

Analysts say politicians are loath to alienate the people who oppose broader background checks and other gun restrictions because they tend to be dedicated, single-issue voters.

The polling also points to a broader context that politicians are watching: The same Quinnipiac polls that show one-sided support for gun restrictions show people closely divided over whether Obama or the NRA better represents their views on guns.

"They can be for a specific kind of gun control, but they may be suspicious of efforts of other kinds that they think might come down the pike," said Peter Brown, the Quinnipiac poll's assistant director.

Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., have spent weeks negotiating with GOP senators, hoping to find a formula that could win the needed bipartisan support.

"I'll wait and see the outcome of that," Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said of those talks, adding that the message his constituents give him is, "Don't take away our rights, our individual rights, our guns."

Other moderate Democratic senators who could be tough for supporters of broader background checks to persuade include Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Max Baucus of Montana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Also targeted by Bloomberg's ads are 10 Republican senators, including Jeff Flake of Arizona, home of ex-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely wounded in a mass shooting, the retiring Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and moderate Susan Collins of Maine.

The Senate gun bill also would increase penalties for illegal gun sales and slightly boost aid for school safety.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama will travel to Denver Wednesday to talk to local leaders about Colorado's efforts to reduce gun violence.

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