A letter from me to the families of the Newtown Tragedy

P.O. Box 3700
Newtown, CT 06470

To the families of the tragedy,

        The most important things in are the hardest to say, no parent should have to bury the children they gave life to. I am a firm believer of that no matter what the situation or circumstance is. My name is Andre Christopher Rivera, I am twenty years old and I live and have been raised in the South Bronx for most of my life and basically what I do for a living when im not in school full time is organized against the injustices in my community. Sadly it has appeared that over the last few months violence around the world has been on the rise. One of the  biggest issues I fight in my community is violence, when I heard about what had occurred I was and still am at loss for words. Nothing shocks me anymore but the incident that occurred shocked me, to that point it has been hard to watch on TV and online. I can not imagine the pain and sorrow you all must be experiencing. As an uncle who has a niece that is not so far from the ages of these young beautiful souls, I  had to think how could as a human, person, organizer and movement builder support you all, the families of this tragedy. The best way I could think of was to write this letter.

      I would like to first express my deepest sorrows to the families. I would also  like to express my support of the movement to completely ban guns and any form of assault weapons in our communities I  would also like to express that you are all in my thoughts and prayers each and every single day. Listening to some of the stories of these young angels i had to only think that they all would have all in their own right changed our world and to that point I hope this situation and tragedy can inspire the youth and all people for that matter to understand that violence is not the solution but we must also address the fact that the person responsible had an out of control mental state and as a society we have to find ways to tackling this issue and making sure that they get treated.

       Finally  I would like to conclude by saying that you all have my full support in any movements that come out of this tragedy. I hope that god can continue to support and help you all in this time of need. stay strong !

Respectfully,

Andre Christopher Rivera