MORE GUNS THAN PEOPLE
Monday marks the first two burials of the 20 young children massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School last week.
Jack Pinto, 6, is remembered as a huge football fan who loved the New York Giants. Wide receiver Victor Cruz visited Pinto's grieving family, and wrote "Jack Pinto, My Hero" on the young boy's cleats.
Noah Pozner, also 6, loved reading and figuring out how things worked mechanically, his uncle, Alexis Haller, told the Associated Press. Haller said the boy was "smart as a whip." Pozner's twin sister, Arielle, survived the shooting. He had called Arielle his "best friend."
Pinto and Pozner's funerals are scheduled for 1 p.m. in Newtown and Fairfield, Conn., respectively.
Details On Funeral And Burial Process
The president of
the Connecticut Funeral Director's Association said the funeral and
burial process for Newtown victims, which began Monday with the separate
burials of Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto, who both were six-years-old, is
unlike anything he has seen before.
"I've unfortunately seen lots
of kids who have died," said Pasquale Forino, 46, who runs Neilan
Funeral Home in New London, Conn. "But this truly shakes your foundation
to the core, and in a small town like Newtown, they need lots of help
to handle this week of burials."
Forino and a group of morticians
who have volunteered have driven to Newtown every day since Friday to
help tend to families who are grieving and prepare arriving bodies for
viewings and burials. The main funeral home in the town, Honan Funeral
Home, is handling the process for 11 victims. Of those, Forino said he
has worked on three -- all kids.
"It's not about me, it's about
the families and victims. But it still affects us," he said. "We do what
we can do to take care of the families. We'll deal with our own
emotional needs later."
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