NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) The Minnesota school shooting hits very close to home for some people in Connecticut. One of the most tragic school shootings in history occurred in Newtown in 2012.
Geneva Cunningham, who survived the Sandy Hook shooting, spoke to local affiliate WTNH about what the Annunciation Catholic School survivors in Minneapolis are enduring.
In the wake of Wednesday’s mass shooting in Minneapolis, police converged on the school as parents anxiously awaited news outside. The situation is all too familiar to Cunningham.
“Those children and their families have no idea how long of a journey this is, and I’m still on it,” Cunningham said.
Thirteen years ago, Cunningham was in the Sandy Hook Elementary library when the shooting began. Her fourth-grade class took shelter in a closet with the librarian.
“She gave us these notebooks where we could write something,” Cunningham said. “People were writing letters to their parents.”
Cunningham, now a writer and a student at Quinnipiac University, was 9 in 2012. The years after the Sandy Hook shooting were hard.
“I spent many years unable to feel,” said Cunningham, who also recently interned for WTNH. “It was too painful. I was stuck. And that’s where those kids are.”
She noted that she and other Sandy Hook survivors are coping in different ways. Some can speak out, while others cannot. The violence continues to haunt all of them.
“When someone drops a book, when someone slams a door, even when someone raises their voice, you remember,” she said.
Her advice to the victims and their families? Listen to the professionals. Her advice to everyone else? The victims are not the ones with the answers.
“We’re surviving this; we can’t solve it,” Cunningham said. “We need people who are equipped to solve it to listen, to show up.”
When Cunningham was younger, she said she felt sure the government had some big solution in mind because of Sandy Hook. That feeling is going away.
“I lose hope every time something like this happens,” Cunningham said. “They don’t tell you how hopeless it is. They don’t tell you that a part of your heart is missing, and you’re searching for it all your life.”
And for so many in Minneapolis, that search has just begun.
