About a month after Adam Lanza opened fire on Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown held a public community meeting to discuss the now-empty building’s future. Right now, the town appears to be split between people who want the school torn down to make way for a memorial and those who think demolition would feel like a surrender. As one Newtown resident told NBC New York, “To tear it down completely would be like saying to evil, ‘You’ve won.’” That side believes that only the hallways and classrooms where children and educators died should be destroyed — a solution much like the one reached by the Columbine High School community, which chose to tear down the library where most of the bloodshed took place. No decision is expected for a while: another public meeting is planned for next week, and officials will also speak privately with the victims’ families about their wishes.
