Newtown mother: Lanza home a "black spot" in neighborhood

(CBS News) The state of Connecticut, where Newtown is located, is holding hearings about whether to change its gun laws. One of the witnesses Wednesday night will be Nicole Hockley. Her six-year-old son Dylan was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack. She spoke to CBS News at the offices of Sandy Hook Promise, the anti-violence advocacy group formed by Newtown residents. The following is a transcript of the interview.

Michelle Miller: Why is now the time to stand up and speak?

A photograph of Dylan Hockley, one of the students who died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
CBS News

Nicole Hockley: Now is the time because it's the only time I can start to make any sense of this for myself. Dylan was just pure love when you get right down to it. I am not being fair to his legacy and memory if I sit back and do nothing.

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Miller: What do you want to happen?

Hockley: All I've seen in all honesty so far is people immediately jumping on agendas. I find that disgusting. I'd rather see more conversation and listening taking place.

The Hockleys lived just yards away from the home of the gunman. Nicole Hockley saw Adam Lanza only once. It was from a distance -- the week of the attack.

Hockley: It's a physical reaction to realize that at some point so soon before it happened that you'd actually seen the person who took your child.

Miller: Had you ever met the Lanzas?

Hockley: I am ashamed to admit no.

Miller: Ashamed? Why?

Hockley: That house was kind of a black spot in the neighborhood. No one spoke about them. I've never heard a neighbor speak of them. Perhaps if there was more engagement within a community with neighbors looking out for each other, supporting each other, then maybe they would have gotten help in a different sort of way. But to everyone on your street except for one house, and that happens to be a house with people that--or a person who does this--that's kind of hard to swallow. So there is some regret there.

More than 100 people signed up this to speak at Wednesday night's public hearing. Organizers expect it could last well past midnight.

  • Michelle Miller




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