The decade that has passed since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School has not lessened the sorrow and anger many in Newtown, Connecticut, still feel, and Tuesday’s massacre brought all those emotions to the surface.
The Sandy Hook Elementary School and Newtown, Connecticut, community at large were on high alert following Tuesday’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers.
Authorities on Wednesday determined it best to increase the police presence at Sandy Hook, where 10 years ago a gunman shot and killed 20 students between the ages of 6 and 7 and six staff members in what remains the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
The decade that has passed has not lessened the sorrow and anger many in the Connecticut town still feel, and Tuesday’s massacre brought all those emotions to the surface.
Mark Barden, whose son Daniel Barden was just 7 years old when he was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012, told Inside Edition Daniel’s death is with him every minute.
“We need to get involved,” said Barden, who is CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund, which works to pass legislation on school safety and gun violence prevention. “We need to do something about it and not stand idly by and watch it happen.”
Sandy Hook’s former library clerk, Mary Ann Jacob, is also fighting for change.
“People still send their kids off to school every morning with the expectation that they will come home safely, and we are failing them,” Jacob told Inside Edition.
The shooting at Robb Elementary School is the worst school shooting in U.S history since the Sandy Hook massacre, officials said.
The shooter was identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a local high school student who had earlier shot his grandmother at her home and then drove to the school, crashed his car, and ran inside, authorities said.
"As soon as he made entry into the school, he started shooting children, teachers, whoever was in his way; he was shooting everybody,” said Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez.
The school is home to students in grades two through four, Uvalde Police Chief Pete Arredondo said in a brief press conference Tuesday. The gunman acted alone "during this heinous crime," the chief said. Ramos was fatally shot by law enforcement officers at the scene, officials said.
