Sandy Hook Calling

Messages in my box today from two Sandy Hook survivors, Nicole Hockley and Kaitlin Roig.

Yes, another school shooting and they are alarmed—again.

Nicole’s six-year-old son Dylan was shot to death in his classroom before noon on December 14, 2014.

Kaitlin was the first grade teacher whose classroom was closest to the door where the gunman shot through the locked door to gain entrance. She knew the sound of gunfire. So did her six-year-olds, from video games. Kaitlin hurried the children into a bathroom the size of a child's toilet. There she packed fifteen children and squeezed in with them and kept them quiet for an hour when they all could hear the gunfire, screams, and pleas just through the thin wall.

I met with her at her home in Connecticut a few weeks afterward and wrote a magazine article about her courage and fast-acting.

Kaitlin has written a book and she is in Atlanta to talk about it tonight. First Baptist Church, Decatur, GA, sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book, 7 p.m. We are getting together afterward, so an update on Kaitlin tomorrow.

Both Nicole and Kaitlin are Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters of mine.