On December 14, 2012, the nation watched the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut in horror. One gunman shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children aged six and seven. On Monday, a gunman shot and killed three people at Michigan State University.
A TikTok user who goes by the name jmattttt recorded a video overnight during the MSU lockdown, announcing that she lived through both mass shootings. Barely 12 hours later her video has gone viral on both TikTok and Twitter.
“So the reason I’m making this video right now is because it is almost 1:00 AM and I am currently directly across the street from where the shootings at Michigan State occurred,” she begins. “I am 21 years old, and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through.”
“Ten years and two months ago I survived the Sandy Hook shooting,” she says, explaining that on that day she “was crouched in the corner” in her school in Newtown, Connecticut. “I was hunched in the corner with my classmates for so long” that she has “full blown” PTSD fractures in her lower back.
“The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible. My heart goes out to all the families and the friends of the victims of this Michigan State shooting.”
“But we can no longer just provide love and prayers,” she continues. “It needs to be legislation. It needs to be action. It’s not okay. We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent. I’ll forever be Sandy Hook Strong and forever be Spartans Strong.”
@jmattttt Enough is Enough. #spartanstrong #sandyhookstrong ♬ original sound – Jmattttt
On TikTok her video has received over 4600 comments and 310,000 likes.
On Twitter, a version posted by Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action has been viewed over one million times.
Michigan Democratic State Senate Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow, who gained national attention after Republican State Senator Lana Theis falsely claimed McMorrow wanted to “groom and sexualize kindergartners,” retweeted jmattttt’s video. She also said, “We have young people this morning who have lived through this multiple times, in multiple different communities, in multiple schools, wondering if there’s anywhere they can feel safe.”
Indeed, WXYZ Detroit reporter Sarah Michals posted video of one of the students “ushered out of a campus building by police” who “is wearing an Oxford Strong sweatshirt.”
“Oxford Strong” refers to the November 30, 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Detroit, Michigan that left four students dead.
“So sad & twisted that some of these students may possibly be witnessing their second school shooting,” Michals said.
That would make at least two students at MSU on Monday who had previously survived a school mass shooting.
Watch the videos above or at this link.