You still don’t want to read this

Tough for Stefanik to walk the walk on transparency

By Ken Tingley

It has been 10 years since those 20 children were massacred in Connecticut.

You probably didn’t realize that.

I’m sure you don’t want to think about what happened that day. I’m sure you don’t want to admit what monsters we have become by doing nothing to prevent it from happening again. After all, the shooting in the Uvalde school that killed 21 was just six months ago.

It was the fifth anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting before I finally read the state police report. The state of Connecticut acted prudently to protect the families. It made it a crime to show the crime-scene photos and the state police made a pact to never talk about what they had scene.

It was for the families, but it didn’t stop Alex Jones.

The state police report is written in monotone, without emotion, but it is impossible not to be horrified.

On Dec. 12, 2017, I published a column in The Post-Star titled “You don’t want to read this.” I was hoping the title would make you want to read it. I reprinted the column in my book “The Last American Editor.”

“At first glance it did not appear that there were any casualties,” it is written in the report. “To the left of the room as you walk in there was a bathroom in the corner. There was a massive pile of bodies in this room. At the time I did not know that it was a bathroom and wondered how the suspect had the time to kill that many people and stack them in the corner of the room. There appeared to be about 15 bodies in the small room and several bodies, including two adults near the entrance to the room.”

Imagine that scene.

Sgt. Bill Cairo was one of two state police officers to enter the room that day. He was parked near Newtown when the call came in that day. As he entered the school, he encountered a wounded teacher hiding in a conference room. He told her he would be back and with another state policeman went in pursuit of the gunman. They found him moments later dead of a self-inflicted wound.

It was then they made their way into the Classroom 8 and into the 41/2 by 3/12 foot bathroom.

“All the other bodies were inside the bathroom or in the entrance to the bathroom. An adult victim was lying across the mass of bodies inside the bathroom,” reads the report. “Sgt. Carrio began to lift bodies off of the top of the pile (redacted) and many of the bodies had injuries that were obviously fatal. As. Sgt. Carrio began to empty out the bathroom, it became apparent what had occurred due to how efficiently packed in the bathroom the children were. It appeared as if the teachers in the room immediately upon hearing the gun shots began to pack children into the bathroom. The children that were sitting on the floor of the bathroom were packed in like sardines. One little girl was sitting, crouched in between the toilet and the back corner of the room. I thought that she might have the best chance for survival. As the pile got higher it appeared that there was a mad scramble to get into the bathroom with people stepping on one another and climbing on top of each other. The teachers would not have been able to get into the room even if they wanted to. The teachers appeared to have been shepherding the children into the room and were then probably going to shut the door.”

Imagine those final seconds, because we know how this ends for the babies and the teachers entrusted to protect them.

“They did not close and lock the door to the classroom for some reason and were interrupted by the shooter as they attempted to fill the bathroom with children,” the official report says. “The shooter then opened fire on the mass of children and adults. As Sgt. Carrio got to the last bodies, it was clear that no one had survived.”

In another part of the report, we read Sgt. Cario’s voice:  “As I stared in disbelief, I recognized the face of a little boy.”

He had found 6-year-old Ben Wheeler barely breathing and clinging to life.

“The face of the little boy is the only specific image I have in that room,” Cario said in a New York Times article Wednesday.  The Times reported the rules of triage required Cario to first stop the bleeding of the wounded teacher. He then carried the the little boy to a squad car near the school entrance and waited for an ambulance. The child died on the way to the hospital. The teacher survived.

New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson wrote this Wednesday: “It has haunted Mr. Cario and his fellow troopers that they could not save those who died that day.

He later visited the classroom with Ben Wheeler’s parents. When the father asked how many shell casings were found in the tiny bathroom, he was told “80.”

Bill Cario retired full-time from the state police four years ago and is battling pancreatic cancer. He said he marks the anniversary each year by visiting the graves of the 20 children.

Sandy Hook was not the beginning of mass shootings and it certainly was not the end. Very little has changed about the availability of guns in our communities and the number of mass shootings is now a regular occurrence we all accept. That will not change.

Last week, Washington Post reporter John Woodrow Cox, who wrote a book called “Children Under Fire: An American Crisis,” said on the “Post Reports” podcast:

“I think the scope of this crisis is so much larger than people are willing to acknowledge. It's not just the kids who died. It's not just kids who got shot. It's not just the kids like Caitlyne who listen to the whole thing happen and lost dear friends. It's third-graders, it's teachers and their kids. It's cousins. It's people in the community who thought, ‘Is my kid dead?’ That damage cannot be undone.”

Since then, each and every student has grown up experiencing active shooter drills in their classrooms where they are herded into small bathrooms and told to be quiet.

Apparently, that is the best we can do.

Book signing

The Chapman Museum is one of those places you should go to at least once a year. So many of us mean to do it, but then life gets in the way.

The Glens Falls museum will be holding its holiday open house on Saturday (free admission from 10 to 4). The house will be decorated for Christmas.

I will also be on hand from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. to sign books.

I will also be signing books in Hudson Falls at McKernon Gallery from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Stefanik and transparency

The Albany Times Union ran this interesting headline online Thursday: “Stefanik wants FBI transparency in limo case, won’t share letter.”

Stefanik became instantly concerned with the Schoharie County limo crash that killed 20 people right after redistricting put it in her district. The T-U has religiously followed the case and reported on the special treatment the limo company’s owner seemed to be getting because he was an FBI informant.

“It wasn't until early this year — after the publication of a comprehensive New York Magazine article on the crash that highlighted the Times Union's reporting — that Stefanik and others, including U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, demanded the FBI answer questions about whether or not it had protected Hussain (its informant),” the Times Union reported this week.

Stefanik renewed those attacks on the FBI this week saying the FBI sent her a letter in November denying her access to details of the internal investigation into the informant. She demanded they be more transparent. But when the T-U asked to see the letter Stefanik had received from the FBI, she refused.

Her office did not provide any reason why.

Sometimes it is tough to walk the walk.