Veronique Pozner/Sandy Hook shooting footage

VERONIQUE POZNER: “It was a nightmare, déjà vu scenario that it just, you know, brought everything back in a wave”.

00:00

Home movie footage of Noah

LISA MILLAR: She lost her six year old son.

00:11

Eric Milgram

ERIC MILGRAM: “And they knew something bad had happened. They heard the screaming... the shooting”.

00:14

Lauren Milgram

LISA MILLAR: His daughter survived hiding in a primary school bathroom.

00:17

Eric Milgram

ERIC MILGRAM: “Can you imagine though what that does to a six or seven year old when they see something like that?”

00:21

Family photo of Noah/Demonstrators

LISA MILLAR: Now, the court case that could force change.

00:26

Assault rifle commercial

00:30

VERONIQUE POZNER: “You can’t put a product such as that out in the general public and

00:34

Veronique

expect not to have accountability”.

00:39

Veronique walks dogs/Eric Milgram and family erect tent/Aerial, Sandy Hook school. GFX o/lay: photos of killed children and teachers

LISA MILLAR: Tonight, we go back to the families whose lives changed forever on the day twenty tiny children and six teachers went to school and never came home.

“So have you given up

00:42

Veronique

hope that the gun laws will change in this country?”

VERONIQUE POZNER: “No, I have not given up hope. I think we’re better than this”.

00:53

Computer screen showing conspiracy theory website

LISA MILLAR: And their fight to shut down the dangerous conspiracy theories.

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS: “Busted!

01:01

CU of conspiracy theory sites

100% proof that Sandy Hook was a hoax”.

01:06

Millar with Lenny Pozner

LISA MILLAR: “What are they saying about your family and about Noah?”

01:10

LENNY POZNER: “He is an actor and he’s, he never really died and that we are all actors”.

01:13

Eric Milgram and family erecting tent

ERIC MILGRAM: “They’re going to threaten you, they’re going to tell you that you’re part of a

01:18

Eric Milgram 100%

conspiracy, you’re going to be victimised all over again”.

01:21

Congressional sit in. Congressman at lectern

DEMOCRAT POLITICIAN #1: “We have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence”.

01:24

LISA MILLAR: Will America finally listen.

01:29

Congressman to camera

DEMOCRAT POLITICIAN #2: “You can help us win this battle America. Call your representative up. Call these Republicans up on the phone and tell them we want to vote!”

01:32

Icy river

Music

01:42

O/lay: Photos of Noah

VERONIQUE POZNER: “His life energy, his appetite for life, he was a bon vivant. You know, he really enjoyed food

01:54

Veronique

and companionship and he was very engaged

02:03

O/lay: Photos of Noah

in life. I think he.... he had a lot to teach everyone about being connected”.

02:09

Snowy playground

Music

02:20

LISA MILLAR: [February, 2013] “It’s a big deal for a

02:29

Millar with Veronique. Super:
February 2013

mother to speak out like this and yet you are finding the strength to do that.

02:30

Veronique. Super:
VERONIQUE POZNER

What are you hoping to achieve?”

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I think I’d like other mothers to hear me, to hear or grasp even a bit of the magnitude of the loss.

02:35

Photo. Noah

I’m speaking on behalf of my son so that he’s not forgotten”.

02:46

Aerial. Sandy Hook school

Music

02:52

Sandy Hook massacre footage

LISA MILLAR: In December of 2012, Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in the prosperous north east of the United States became a place of terror. With the doors to the school locked and students safely in their classrooms, shots rang out.

03:02

POLICE RADIO: “Sandy Hook School. Caller’s indicating she thinks there’s someone shooting in the building”.

03:22

Photos. Girl/Noah/Teacher

LISA MILLAR: In a matter of minutes, twenty children, including Veronique Pozner’s six year old son Noah were slain – along with six of the teachers who tried to protect them.

03:27

Child after massacre

CHILD: “We heard guns and we also heard screaming and crying”.

03:38

Roadside memorial to children and teachers

Music

03:42

LISA MILLAR: In the days and weeks after the slaughter at the primary school, few of the parents wanted to talk publicly, but we found Veronique Pozner, mother of five, determined that her son

03:47

Fire station exterior

would not become just another statistic.

04:00

Veronique

VERONIQUE POZNER: “It’s really heart wrenching to see your child’s name on a headstone. I mean… and it’s heart wrenching in any case, but it was just so sudden, and a scenario I never entertained in my wildest nightmares”.

04:03

Ice on leaves

Music

04:28

School zone sign

LISA MILLAR: Veronique sent her children to Sandy Hook school on that Friday,

04:34

Snowy landscape. O/lay Photos. Pozner children

big sister Sophia and six year old twins, Arielle and Noah. Noah’s little body was riddled

04:38

O/lay photo. Adam Lanza/ Noah

with eleven bullets from Adam Lanza’s gun. Veronique, a nurse, forced herself to identify his remains.

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I felt I owed it to him.

04:48

Millar with Veronique

I mean I was his mother in life and I’m his mother  after, you know, no matter what”.

04:57

Orlando nightclub massacre. Super: June 12, 2016

05:05

LISA MILLAR: More than three years later, she woke to news of yet another horrific mass killing using a semi-automatic weapon originally designed for the battlefield - fifty people dead at a nightclub in Orlando Florida, including the gunman.

05:12

Traffic GVs

“In almost thirty years in

05:29

Millar to camera driving

Journalism, the Sandy Hook massacre was one of the hardest stories I’ve had to cover. I remember a colleague at the time commenting, how do you write an obituary for a five year old? And then how do you write nineteen more? I’ve thought a lot about that line and about the families, especially Veronique Pozner, who I met in the weeks after the attack, her son was one of the victims, Noah his name was. Three and a half years later, I’m on my way to her place and I want to see how she’s going”.

05:34

Millar greets Veronique at front door

06:05

Millar with Veronique at home

I find Veronique now living in a city a long way from Sandy Hook. She and her family moved after Noah was killed. It was too painful to stay.

“Is there a part of you though that felt torn about leaving

06:19

Veronique

the place where Noah last was?”

VERONIQUE POZNER: “Yes. I felt guilty about that. I definitely did, but it didn’t take me too long

06:34

Photos of Noah in home

to realise that, you know, for me to feel close to him and to think about him and his laugh and the things he would say,

06:45

Veronique

I don’t find that at the cemetery. All I find there is loss and bottomless grief really, quite frankly. It’s very, very harrowing for me to go. So knowing that, that guilt has really gone away, because I feel close to him

06:54

O/lay. Photos. Noah

when I think about him, when I remember him, when I look at his pictures, when I… you know, laugh about something he said with the girls. I still haven’t been able to

07:19

Veronique

watch films of him though, but I do look at his pictures all the time”.

07:32

Video of balloons being release

VERONICA POZNER: “We’re sending you these balloons and hope they reach you, all the way in heaven”.

Music

07:37

Veronique interview

LISA MILLAR: “What was your first reaction when you heard the news from Orlando?”

VERONICA POZNER: “It was just… first reaction was just a wave of nausea, pretty much. Just that feeling of here we go again because we’re asleep at the wheel and we’re about to crash again, because I knew before any confirmation was made that he had to have used a high powered rifle to get the amount of casualties they were starting to talk about. It was a nightmare, déjà vu scenario that it just… you know, brought everything back in a wave. And my heart just went out to all those young people that lost their lives and their families and just knowing they’re just beginning that journey”.

07:50

Assault rifle commercial. Super:
Sig Sauer commercial

SIG SAUER COMMERCIAL: “Shooter make ready. The Sig MCX is here and it’s unlike anything you’ve seen or heard”.

08:43

LISA MILLAR: This is the assault rifle used to kill in Orlando. Developed for America’s Special Forces, it can fire 45 rounds in a minute.

08:51

TEXT: Sig Sauer, when it counts. www.sigevolution.com

SIG SAUER COMMERCIAL: “The Sig MCX eclipses everything that’s come before it. It’s the start of a new era”.

09:00

LISA MILLAR: A semi-automatic gun similar to this has been the weapon of choice in America’s recent massacres – the San Bernardino slayings last September, the attack in a Colorado movie theatre in 2012

09:16

Icy road outside school

and at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

09:29

2013. Millar and Veronique look at photos

When I first met Veronique, just weeks after Sandy Hook, she was calling for a ban.

VERONIQUE POZNER: “They are weapons

09:32

Veronique

of mass carnage that are designed for the battlefield. It just… it just has no place in society as I see it. I think they should be made illegal and I think there should be a compulsory buy-back program of these weapons”.

LISA MILLAR: “Similar to what we saw in Australia?”

VERONIQUE POZNER: “Correct”.

09:39

Orlando massacre aftermath footage

Music

10:01

Veronique interview

LISA MILLAR: “Are you shocked that Sandy Hook and the death of Noah and the other children wasn’t enough to change things?”

10:10

VERONIQUE POZNER: “I thought the fact that twenty small children as well as six educators being decimated in a very short amount of time would be such a wake-up call for the nation.

10:17

Orlando massacre aftermath footage

It shocks me. It shocks me that... you know, we seem to be on one hand concerned about this

10:38

Veronique

massive loss of life that occurs during mass shootings, or the statistics that are coming out of our American cities, but by the same token, there’s a kind of complacency and I think part of it is just the powerful lobby of the NRA and the gun manufacturers and the immunity that they enjoy and …”

10:54

[shot continuous]

LISA MILLAR: “And they’ve still got the power? I mean we talked about it when we met in 2013”.

VERONIQUE POZNER: “Yes and I think they’ve… the ice that they’re standing on is becoming thinner and thinner every time one of these events happens. It becomes more and more difficult for them to rationally justify why we can’t have reasonable gun control measures in this country”.

11:23

NRA Headquarters exterior

LISA MILLAR: The National Rifle Association or NRA

11:49

NRA press conference

is perhaps the most powerful and controversial lobbying group in America.

11:55

Protestor at press conference being led away. Super:
December 2012

PROTESTOR: “NRA stop killing our children. It’s the NRA and the assault weapons that are killing our children”.

12:00

La Pierre addresses press conference

WAYNE LA PIERRE: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”.

LISA MILLAR: Wayne La Pierre has

12:07

Protesters at press conference

been running the NRA for twenty years and earns a million dollars a year because he’s so successful”.

PROTESTOR: “Shame on the NRA!

12:16

Ban assault weapons now! “

12:25

Capitol building, Washington

LISA MILLAR: At the first Senate committee hearings on gun control after Sandy Hook,

12:27

La Pierre addresses senate committee hearing

La Pierre went on the offensive.

WAYNE LA PIERRE: “Law abiding gun owners will not

12:32

accept blame for the acts of violent or deranged criminals, nor do we believe that governments should dictate what we can lawfully own and use to protect our families”.

LISA MILLAR: La Pierre said no

12:35

to proposed bans on semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazine clips, and no to more background checks for gun buyers.

12:48

NRA commercial. Super:
NRA commercial

NRA COMMERCIAL: “I’m a mum and just like millions of other women, that’s why I own guns”.

12:57

LISA MILLAR: Successive efforts to change gun laws are constantly blocked in Congress.

13:02

C-SPAN

Democrat senators at sit-sin

DEMOCRAT POLITICIAN #1: “We have lost hundreds and thousands of innocent people to gun violence”.

13:07

LISA MILLAR: Ten days after the Orlando murders, in an action reminiscent of civil rights protests in the 1960s, Democrats launched a 25 hour sit in on the floor of Congress. They wanted a vote on legislation that would stop people on a terrorist watch list from buying guns.

13:14

C-SPAN

DEMOCRAT POLITICIAN #1: “We’re calling on the leadership of the House to bring commonsense gun control legislation to the House floor. Give us a vote! Let us vote! We came here to do our job! We came here to work!”

13:34

DEMOCRAT POLITICIAN #2: “Rise up Democrats. Rise up Americans. This cannot stand. We will occupy this floor. We will no longer be denied a right to vote”.

13:48

DEMOCRAT POLITICIAN #3: “You can help us win this battle, America. Call your representative up. Call these Republicans up on the phone and tell them we want to vote. America, you can win this battle tonight for us”.

14:03

Mobile phone footage of sit-in

LISA MILLAR: After the official cameras were switched off, they ignored a ban on mobile phones, instead using them to live stream their protest to social media.

14:16

NRA commercial

NRA ADVERTISEMENT: “To the ayatollahs of Iran and every terrorist you enable, listen up. You might have met our fresh faced flower child president and his weak-kneed Ivy League friends”.

14:32

LISA MILLAR: The NRA opposes the “no fly no buy” proposal, calling it an infringement of civil liberties because many innocent people could be on the watch list and prevented from owning a gun.

14:45

NRA ADVERTISEMENT: “I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place”.

14:57

NRA commercial

NRA GUN ADVERTISEMENT: “Let me say something to every political hack pretending you know an AR15 from a double barrel shotgun in the wake of the Orlando terror attack. Stop talking”.

15:03

LISA MILLAR: With substantial financial backing from America’s arms makers, the NRA spends more than $200 million a year promoting and defending gun ownership.

15:12

Commercial continues

NRA GUN ADVERTISEMENT: “I was a seal for 12 years. Now I train average, everyday Americans to protect themselves and their families. The only way for us to stay free, was by having whatever guns the bad guys have. This firearm gives average people the advantage they so desperately need and deserve, to protect their life, liberty and happiness”.

15:23

Lenny Pozner on computer looking at conspiracy theory website

LISA MILLAR: The NRA has support in the dark corners of the internet too. Incredibly since Noah died, the Pozners and relatives of other Sandy Hook victims have been fending off so-called “Gun Truthers” – on line trolls and conspiracy theorists who claim Sandy Hook never happened or was part of a plot to take away guns.

15:43

[VO video website]: Now here is the phoney, fictional computer generated Photoshop boy - the bogey man, Adam Lanza.

16:10

Millar and Lenny at computer

LENNY POZNER: [looking at computer] “ All of these links here are of youtube videos that have been taken down.”

LISA MILLAR: “Right OK - so they’ve been taken down?”

LENNY POZNER: “They’re gone.”

LISA MILLER: Noah’s dad, Lenny,

16:18

has dedicated himself to outing them on his own website and having the fake sites removed.

“You didn’t want us to show your face,

16:27

Millar with Lenny in silhouette. Super: LENNY POZNER

can you explain why?”

LENNY POZNER: “Because of the... all of the threats against me, all of the hate, all of the death threats. There’s an active FBI investigation and it’s part of my... concern, part of staying vigilant”.

16:36

LISA MILLAR: “What are they saying about your family and about Noah?”

LENNY POZNER: “Well there are many conspiracies, many theories, many things that are being said but...

16:58

Photos of Noah

one of which is that he is an actor and he never really died and that we are all actors.

17:08

Lenny in silhouette

It’s just another anomaly in the land of conspiracy theorists. When things don’t add up for them, they don’t need to connect”.

17:16

Millar and Lenny looking at images on computer

LENNY POZNER:  “Three years ago, every single photo was of this type. You wouldn’t see anything real of Noah”.

17:28

LISA MILLAR: “Then your hard work is paying off”.

LENNY POZNER: “Oh absolutely, oh absolutely, definitely”.

17:36

LISA MILLAR: But they aren’t all faceless on the fringes of the internet.

17:40

Lenny Pozner interview

LISA MILLAR: “I’m just sort of a bit in awe of you that you are able to just take this on as a, almost as a duty, as something that you have to do because when I look up those sites and read what’s written, I would just feel absolutely gutted. I mean I don’t know how you manage not to just feel such a heavy, heavy sadness about it”.

17:44

LENNY POZNER: “I do and I can’t really explain why I’ve chosen that path, but it really

18:09

Photos. Noah

is not something that I stop and think about, it really is the only choice for me to make. Someone is treating the memory of my son that way and I have to absolutely defend the memory of my son. I have no choice.

18:14

Lenny in silhouette interview

And conspiracy theories erase history, they erase our memories and

18:29

Noah Batman drawing/Noah in Batman suit

how will this event be remembered a hundred years from now, and we may not remember any of this and

18:35

Lenny in silhouette interview

so I think it’s important, the work that I’m doing”.

18:42

Home video shots of Noah playing

18:46

Wintery Sandy Hook GVs

19:00

LISA MILLAR: When I first came to Sandy Hook

19:04

Millar walking in Sandy Hook

in the days after the tragedy, it was December. The town covered in snow and ice, a bleak atmosphere to match the mood.

19:05

Sandy Hook GVs Spring

Now, there’s a sense of renewal.

19:14

Music

19:18

“The years have passed

19:24

Millar to camera walking on bridge

and the seasons have changed, but being back in Sandy Hook you cannot forget the horror that this town went through. Many thought that it would be the line in the sand when it came to guns in the US, that change would be immediate, but it’s been much slower than that”.

19:26

Eric Milgram interview

“How does a town like Sandy Hook recover from something like that?”

19:45

ERIC MILGRAM: “You never recover, you just go on and, you know, what I want people… you know, in the United States to realise is you think this won’t happen to you. You think that, oh well, you know, you hear about it on the news, it’s tragic and, you know, you can relate to it in some ways but you think ‘Wow that was really awful’. But then you go on

19:50

with your life and I tell every community, ‘You better have a plan in place now. Do your school shooter lockdown drills, really assess, you know, your security thoroughly scenario plan and plan for the aftermath’.”

20:12

Milgram family in garden, set up tent

20:25

LISA MILLAR : Eric Milgram’s daughter Lauren was in the same grade as Noah at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She survived by hiding in a bathroom with Noah’s twin sister.

ERIC MILGRAM: “And they knew something bad had happened. They heard the screaming, the shooting – you’ve got to

20:31

Eric Milgram. Super:
ERIC MILGRAM

remember this was an event that was so severe that seasoned first responders, people who’ve been on sites of shootings, car accidents and what not beforehand, you know, many of them said this is the worst trauma, tragedy I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. But on top of that, some of those people were permanently disabled, you know, what they saw that day of the shooting was so severe, that they couldn’t... they just couldn’t work any more. Can you imagine what that does to a six or seven year old when they see something like that?

20:47

Lauren in garden with family

I know for a fact that Lauren she did see things that she will not talk about to anybody and this has changed her personality. You know, and it’s hurtful to watch because

21:16

Eric Milgram

beforehand she was so confident, so outgoing, and in the months after the shooting,

21:28

Lauren in garden with family

she really clammed up, closed up”.

LISA MILLAR: Eric and his family stayed in Sandy Hook. He’s got a sad warning for the families and friends grieving after the tragedy in Orlando.

ERIC MILGRAM: “Be prepared that when you speak out, you will be harassed.

21:33

Eric Milgram interview

You know, you’ve gone through a horrible trauma, be prepared that you are going to be harassed on social media. People are going to call your house, they’re going to get your work phone number, they’re going to threaten you, they’re going to tell you that you’re part of a conspiracy, you’re going to be victimised all over again”.

21:49

LISA MILLAR: “What do you think is the worst thing you’ve heard with the conspiracies?”

ERIC MILGRAM: “That it never happened, that Sandy Hook never happened

22:05

or it was a government false flag operation to take away people’s guns which is absolutely absurd. There are far better ways you know to do that, than to stage a shooting like this”.

22:13

Sandy Hook GVs

LISA MILLAR: He’s now part of a community group lobbying for more stringent background checks on gun buyers and thinks what happened here has raised awareness. Even so, he’s not sure whether the type of gun that killed so many of his daughter’s classmates should be totally banned.

ERIC MILGRAM: “The official position

22:23

Eric Milgram interview

of the organisation for which I’m a spokesman, the Newtown Action Alliance, they are fully 100% behind assault weapons ban. My personal opinion, just to separate them, I, you know don’t know if I would go quite that far yet, but I do believe that we need to look at how assault weapons are sold, marketed, distributed and we need to make changes”.

LISA MILLAR: In an effort to force change,

22:43

Veronique with dogs

the families of some Sandy Hook victims, including Noah Pozner’s parents, are suing the manufacturer of the gun used to kill their kids.

23:06

Protestors at Capitol building

LISA MILLAR: They hope the courts might achieve what the US Government seems unable to manage. To strip the legal immunity enjoyed by the makers and sellers of guns used in crime.

23:15

Veronique interview

“What are you hoping to achieve with the lawsuit against the

23:28

gun manufacturers?”

VERONICA POZNER: “Accountability. That you can’t put a product such as that out in the general public and expect not to have accountability. Certainly it’s one of the few industries that enjoys that. I mean drug manufacturers and tobacco or cigarette manufacturers do not enjoy that. There are consequences and it’s about time that people brought that to the forefront”.

23:32

Guns for sale

LISA MILLAR: Six million guns are made in America every year and it’s estimated the weapons and ammunition generate about six billion dollars a year in revenue. After every massacre, there’s a spike in sales.

24:09

Veronique interview

“Have you given up hope that the gun laws will change in this country?”

VERONICA POZNER: “No, I have not given up hope. I think we’re better than this.

24:26

I wish a lot more had been done, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t get done. It just means that it’s a long process.

24:34

After all, you know, there are changes that have occurred in civil rights in this country that a couple of generations ago were... would have been inconceivable. ‘Oh no that’s never going to happen!’ But the fact is we woke up as a nation to the injustices, to the abuses and so this is our next fight – the violence in our society is our next fight”.

24:43

Rebuilding of school

Music

25:13

LISA MILLAR: Sandy Hook Elementary School has been bulldozed. They’re building a new school in its place, but for the families

25:17

Millar at cemetery, at Noah’s grave

who lost their children here, nothing will erase what happened. Noah Pozner would have been ten this year.

VERONICA POZNER: “It is an awful

25:24

Veronique interview

truth but we have to own it, you know? It’s part of our family’s history. It’s been agonising. I have cried enough tears to fill an ocean and I still do, all the time, but now we have to own it. It is our truth and it’s also the truth of many, many other families who since Sandy Hook and before, have lost their loved ones -- their children, their spouses, their sisters and brothers, friends -- to violence, to gun violence, especially these types of weapons. I mean we just… I feel that connection. I feel that there’s a, there’s got to be a string of, you know, going through all these victims and, and our mourning and our anger and our pain’s got to get heard. How many of us do we have to be, before we’re heard?”

25:34

Home video footage of Noah’s birthday

[singing: ‘Happy Birthday…’

26:36

Credits

Reporter: Lisa Millar

Producers: Sashka Koloff
                  Greg Wilesmith

Editors:       Stuart Miller
                    Spencer Austad
                    Garth Thomas

Additional footage: C-SPAN

                                Steven Fernandaz  (Orlando ftg)

Executive producer: Marianne Leitch

abc.net.au/foreign

ABC © 2016

26:48

Outpoint

27:00