NEW YORK, United States, Monday December 17, 2012 – Caribbean-born United states legislators have expressed outrage and sorrow over the mass killing of children and teachers at an elementary school in Connecticut.
“The shooting at a Connecticut elementary school are outraging and saddening all at once,” New York City Councilman Dr. Mathieu Eugene, the Haitian-born representative for the 40th Council District in Brooklyn, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Monday.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. A school must be a nurturing and safe environment for our children to learn.
“As a society and government, from the highest levels on down, we must do all that can be done to prevent further tragedies such as this from occurring,” he added.
Eugene’s colleague in the City Council, Grenadian-American Jumaane Willams, co-chair of the Council Task Force to Combat Gun Violence, said in a joint statement with Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Fernando Cabera, anothger Task Force co-chair, that he was “horrified by the carnage” at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“Words cannot express the damage done to this community and our nation as a whole. This tragedy is an urgent reminder that we must strengthen the call for serious gun control reform.
“We pray that elected leaders, regardless of background, can put a stop to this madness and help save lives,” the statement read.
Wearing combat gear and armed with semi-automatic pistols and a semi-automatic rifle, law enforcement authorities said Adam Lanza, 20, killed 27 people, including 20 children ages between five and seven years, in the attack on Friday.
Authorities said Lanza then committed suicide. Police said a 28th person, identified as Lanza’s mother, Nancy Lanza, was also killed in a house in the town. The authorities said she owned the guns that her son used in the massacre.
President Barrack Obama vowed on Sunday to “use whatever power this office holds” to stop massacres like this.
“No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.
“We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?” he asked.
The massacre, coming less than two weeks before Christmas, was the nation’s second-deadliest school shooting. It was exceeded only by the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, in which a gunman killed 32 people and then himself.
