About 60 survivors of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history celebrated a bittersweet and somber high school graduation day on Wednesday in Newtown, Connecticut.
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00:00Well, a bittersweet and somber high school graduation day in Newtown, Connecticut, as many of the survivors of the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting received their high school diplomas.
00:08It comes 12 years after the horrific mass shooting that devastated the Fairfield County community and stunned the country.
00:15Fox 5 Sharon Crowley is in Newtown with more.
00:18Newtown, Connecticut's high school class of 2024 graduation is a bittersweet milestone.
00:25Sixty of the 330 seniors here are survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
00:32The shooter actually came into my classroom, so I had to like watch all my friends and teachers get killed.
00:38And I had to run for my life at six years old.
00:43And I know that was really like traumatizing for me.
00:46And just growing up with having the fear and the what ifs of what could have happened if I stayed.
00:53Charlotte Helen Bacon.
00:56During the commencement, students paid tribute to the 21st graders who never got the chance to grow up.
01:03The what ifs kind of spoil a lot of precious moments, you know, just because you always remember that they're not there.
01:12In December 2012, a gunman shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary, killing 20 school children and six educators.
01:21I knew I wanted to do something more since I was younger.
01:24When the tragedy first happened, I wanted to turn such a terrible thing into something more.
01:31And that these children, educators didn't die for nothing.
01:35Many of these teenagers who survived the tragedy turned their grief into activism against gun violence.
01:42Some recently meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris to express their concerns.
01:47Even though we are missing, like such a big chunk of our class, like Lily said, we are still graduating and we are.
01:56We want to be those regular teenagers who walk across that stage that day and feel that like celebratory feeling in ourselves, knowing that we've come this far.
02:09For the graduates who survived the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,
02:13this is an opportunity not only to start a new chapter, but to make new memories.
02:18Sharon Crowley, Fox 5 News.