00:05 
Narrator – The entry road to the Sandy Hook elementary school remains closed. After many weeks, the investigation continues. The people of Newtown would prefer to be left to grieve in private now. They have had enough of outsiders, and enough of journalists.

00:26
Narrator – Nevertheless, a group of people from Newtown have agreed to appear in this report:
a mother; a boyfriend; the head of the school district; a therapist; and others.
They find it difficult to talk, but feel they have no choice if they want to stop this senseless loss of life from becoming just another statistic.

00:51
Janet Robinson – This parents from Sandy Hook starting getting the word, you would see them running up with the phones to their hears and just screaming “Where is my child? Where is my child?”

01:01
Rob Cox – I see a line of first responders, you know ambulance guys and police man that were there just sobbing., and then I look out and see cameraman sobbing uncontrollably.

01:13
Teresa Rousseau – I want other people to know that this could be your child just as easily as it was mine. This could happen to anybody and it's the saddest thing to deal with.

01:27
Tony Lusardi – It was kind... I started to hyperventilating a little because now was confirmed it was her school, but all I could think was there's no way she could be involved.

01:41
Stephen Beck – I do not try to feed people platitudes, that everything is going to be okay and get back to normal cause it won't.

01:51
Teresa – Here's one [picture] from kindergarten on her little white dress. Still remember going out and buy that.
   
01:59
Narrator – Teresa's daughter is still present at every corner of her mother's home. Lauren had only just turned thirty; a teacher at the very beginning of her career.

02:09
Theresa – And this smile is so typical of Lauren. If I would show you pictures from the time she was two years old, she would always have this gigantic, happy smile.

02:19
Narrator – Lauren had been a substitute teacher for some time, but December the fourteenth was her big day.

02:26
Teresa – I was told by one of the other teachers in the receiving line at her funeral that she was very excited that day because she was assigned her own class room.
02:40
Narrator – She finally had her own class - first grade in the front of the building. The wrong place, at the wrong time.

02:56
Janet – And I called emergency people and they said – Yes; they verified, I just couldn't believe it.
And one of them said - Don't go over there; well, I paced for a  few minutes and I said “Puff!” how can I don't go there, of course I went there, so when I got there it was like a war zone.

03:12
Narrator – As head of the school district Janet Robinson  began to coordinate the initial response, the situation was chaotic, overwhelming. For a moment, she believed every one of the six hundred plus students would come out alive.

03:27
Janet – I had a phone call from the art teacher, that she was in the […] room locked in with some kids, some other children showed up at a day care centre. I'm thinking that, okay our children got spread out but they are okay we are going to find them.

03:41
Teresa – I was watching the TV, flashing on the screen – 27 dead; and my heart just sank.. But still I was just so full of hope that, you know, she wasn't there.

03:56
Narrator – For the families, it was an intensely traumatic period. With no idea of the situation inside the school, time became the enemy. The longer the wait for your child, the greater the chance of bad news.

04:08
Janet - Eventually we were grant permission that we could release the children to their parents, so the teachers brought them out very orderly, in line and had the parents to sign out so we knew that a child was being picked up by their parent. And that was really hard because, then we ran out of kids and there was still parents.

04:31
Narrator – After thirteen hours of an agonizing wait, Theresa gets the news. Shooter Adam Lanza had targeted teacher Lauren right away.

04:40
Teresa – He came into the room she was the first person who was killed. I am glad that that was the case. She didn't have to watch the rest of it.

04:49
Narrator – It was in Lauren's class that the gunman took his biggest toll. After the teacher, Lanza went on to murder fourteen of the fifteen children.

04:58
Teresa - That was one survivor, one little first grader in Lauren's class and she told the police that Lauren did everything she was supposed to. That the children were lined up under their coat racks, on a wall on a side of the room and she was reading them a story to keep them calm.

05:22
Teresa - My thoughts, you know were just, really, how am I going to tell her brothers and how am I going to tell her boyfriend, cause he was here that night.

05:33
Tony – I felt numb. My all body when she told me it fell like my fingers were going to sleep, and I lost, I felt like I was loosing circulation, get all prickly feelings in the hand.

05:46
Narrator – Lauren's boyfriend, Tony, says he can still smell her perfume. It seems impossible to him that he will ever fill the gap left that day.

05:55
Tony – So I had some times I wake up and I think she is there and then, all of a sudden it hits me.
That's when I get, I get  pretty sad.

06:04
Teresa – I am just so glad I had her and rather looking at my glass half-empty when I look at it is  half-full. She had so many more years than the poor little kids in her class and I just have to thank god that we did..

06:26
Narrator – America has had more than its share of mass shootings, but events in Newtown seemed unthinkable. Six adults killed and twenty children aged between six and seven. How does a community begin to recover from a tragedy like this?
How can Newtown find a new meaning, a new future? The shattered town is trying to find ways to heal.

06:51
Tony – It's.. It is a.. It is rude to say it. But it is a nice feeling that there are other people, that you are just not alone, it's not just one family. There is multiple families and, you know, so it's nice that everyone is there for everyone else.

07:11
Stephen – This is a room that we use for, doing play therapy groups. So we are working with some of the children that attended Sandy Hook school and doing a play therapy group here.

07:23
Narrator – Therapist Stephen Beck has been working with the children of Newtown. Children who have seen indescribable violence.

07:33
Stephen – It is a lot of movement based therapy is just helping the kids to work through their trauma. A lot of trauma really resides in the body, there is more and more research finding that and so seating around and just talk about it isn't as helpful.
When I got the call to go there I heard about the extent of what had occurred and when you heard about the full extent that twenty children were shot and killed so, I mean, I remember physically getting nauseous because just everything that I had heard.

08:05
Narrator – How do you heal a whole town? It is not only the families that need help, but friends, neighbours, and first responders who worked on the scene.

08:14
Stephen – What makes it so awful it is not only the images also but the sense that you can't help that, that you can't do anything for it. And that lose of control, the helplessness and the anxiety that can go with that, and I think that with time and therapy it can get better, definitely.

08:34
Dan Cruson – It is estimated that approximately half a million pieces of mail have been received by the town up to  today and there is still coming in and it is still getting sorted.

08:42
Narrator – Newtown has been touched by an out-pouring of support. In the city hall, Dan Cruson has a full time job sorting out all the incoming mail.

08:52
Dan – For example - “To Sandy Hook Elementary School”; obviously done by a school child itself - “love never dies and beautiful memories stay forever!”; and this one was in with a group of others also been sent to us. I would love to see all kept and all preserved in warehouse, the fact of the matter however is, that is just an overwhelming, completely overwhelming, I mean that in every sense of the world. Overwhelming task to try and do that, we recognise the impossibility in terms of, well we just don't have the space in town where this stuff could be stored. We are boring warehouse space right now to be able to do this but that can't go on forever obviously.

09:32
Janet – What you see here are boxes and boxes of cards and letters, artwork, valentines that has been sent to us in memory of all Sandy Hook victims.

09:47
Narrator – Most of the mail is addressed to the school, so it ends up on Janet Robinson's desk. Amongst the messages are offers of support from other schools that have experienced similar calamities.

10:00
Janet – We have, you know, signed from Virginia Tech, last week some Columbine teachers met with our Sandy Hook teachers, Friday and Saturday and it was really cathartic for our teachers to have an opportunity to talk with the Columbine teachers and to realise that life does go on.

10:16
Narrator – Even though the town is still grieving, the people of Newtown realise they are able to take the next step. The whole nation is still in shock; if the United States can ever change, now is the time.

10:29
Janet – This children are, should be the impetuous for positive change. They should be remembered for having something positive happened but I don't want this little kids to have died in vain.

10:41
Teresa – If I think that, if we can be the place that the change started that will help our grief... 
 
10:50
Of Screen Voice - “Accepting on behalf of Lauren Roussaeu her parents Terry and Jal Roussaeu.”   

10:57
Narrator – Last week Teresa received the second highest civilian award in the country.

11:03
Teresa – I think any time I am in a large group of people and the subject comes up and it is all about what actually happened, it just hits home and is very emotional.


11:18
Narrator – This is Teresa's moment and America is listening. With the families of some of the other victims, she has joined an organisation called The Sandy Hook Promise.

11:27
Teresa – I think guns are now the thing we need, really, to focus on. The amount of guns that Americans own is absolutely ridiculous.

11:35
Rob – The promise are really simple pledges, it is: “I promise to do everything in my power to make sure we don't have another Sandy Hook event in this country.”


11:47
Narrator – The Sandy Hook Promise already has an office, and plenty of volunteers all hoping America will change after Newtown. A country with less weapons and tougher gun laws.

11:58
Rob – People need to know that this was a point in time where America, the most evolved, civilised society on the planet actually lived up to that moniker. The moment when America actually became more evolved! And it treated it's people in a way that was more civilised then it was in the past. The high watermark in gun violence was Newtown in December 2012.

12:24
President Obama – It has been two months since Newtown. I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence. But this time is different.

12:38
Narrator – Newtown has become a political symbol. Obama placed family members of the shooting victims in the audience of his State Of The Union speech, politicians wore the  green ribbons of the  Sandy Hook Promise.

12:51
Teresa – In the short term I think that we should stop manufacturing military assault weapons for civilian use. I think that should just be a ban immediately, with no exceptions, and I think the possession of this guns should be made a felony.

13:10
Janet – There is a good deal of support for.., specially from the families here in Newtown for banning assault weapons and the high capacity clips of ammunition. 

12:27
Narrator – For most, the idea of banning guns altogether is a step too far.  Even for the majority in Newtown, the second amendment is not up for debate.

13:37
Tony – America loves it's guns. America has a love affair with guns.

13:40
Reporter – Should things change in America?


13:45
Tony – They should change a little, but never will. No! Guns are to engrained.

13:58
Stephen – I think a peace of that it just a gun sometimes. That sense of I am independent, I'm self-reliable, I can defend myself, I can defend my family. And I think that is part of the male psyche of America.

14:11
Heather Smith – Gun control does not equal taking away your gun rights.

14:15
Narrator – Heather Smith illustrates how complex the gun control debate is. She has joined the Promise, and wants tougher gun laws, but also maintains that guns are not the problem.

14:27
Reporter - Do you have guns at your home?

14:29
Heather – No, but I am in the promise to get one. My first one actually.

14:33
Reporter - Why?

14:34
Heather – Well, [laugh] it's fun that should come up, but I have.. What am I going to do if someone comes up to my home? How am I going to protect my children? I'm going to throw my purse at them?

14:50
Narrator – Theresa has a hard time dealing with such arguments. She wants big change, but the more people talk about gun control, the more guns are sold.

14:59
Teresa – I think the saddest thing for me in the weeks after Lauren died was to go over to the memorials that were in town. And you are looking to this out-pouring of love and then I come home and read in the paper that people had just gone out and bought  like X number of guns that day. That was really, really heart wrenching for me.

15:42
Narrator – tThe people from Newtown never asked for all this attention. They have been unwillingly cast in this position, but now they're here they want America to listen to their message: there should never be another Newtown.

15:39
Janet – You know, throughout my career I have had children in my schools killed accidentally by other children finding daddy's gun, you know I have been to too many funerals of children.

15:56
Teresa – Lauren had two cousins that have served in the army, in Iraq, and they came home unharmed and Lauren went to teach first graders in a school with a very affluent educated community and lost her life. And it is the saddest thing to deal with.. You know this people that think - “I got a gun, my kids will be fine”. It just doesn't work that way.