Angel investing boston massacre

Pressure was building for him to act — especially on assault weapons. The mass murder of young children in the safe space of their first-grade classrooms affected the president as a father. In a brief television address to the nation that Friday, he wiped away tears. A prayer vigil was held at the high school.

Later, he would recall it as the only time he saw Secret Service officers cry. In a music classroom, he posed for photos with the towheaded little sisters of a young victim, one wearing the same black and red dress her big sister had worn in a previous family photo.

In an art classroom, Lenny watched his daughters talking with the president of the United States. It was surreal. When the president embraced Veronique, she felt compelled to tell him about the dreams in which she was calling for Noah. By the time he spoke at the vigil, the president was angry and emotional in a way the public had rarely seen. Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children, year after year after year, is somehow the price of our freedom?

She put on a black blouse with roses and a black skirt, styled her short, wavy chestnut hair, and did her makeup, finishing with rosy red lipstick. She pinned a black lace kippah to her crown and wrapped herself in a knit shawl. White balloons lined the street outside the funeral home.

Though it was not in keeping with Jewish tradition, Veronique insisted on an open casket for a small, private viewing. She felt something stirring inside her. She wanted people in power to see what had happened to her little boy. It reminded Lenny of a bedsheet, as if his son were sleeping. He leaned down to kiss Noah on the forehead, just as he had always done when he tucked him in at night.

He sank down onto the pew between his little girls and his elderly mother, a former vice principal now so lost to dementia that she smiled throughout the funeral, not realizing where she was. Veronique delivered a eulogy. It had been raining on and off all morning. But it is also your day, Noah, my little man. But some other people read about Veronique online — about her background or her eulogy or her decision to get a tattoo — or saw her wearing lipstick and giving a little wave to photographers at the cemetery, and came to a much different conclusion: Would a grieving mother really act like that?

Lenny Pozner and his son, Noah, in May In recent years, Lenny has asked not to be photographed because of threats. She had to keep moving to stay afloat. It was 25 other souls that left this earth that day because that weapon fell into the hands of a tormented soul and that haunts me. Her child was murdered with an instrument of war meant for a battlefield.

The assault rifle and high-capacity magazines that allowed the shooter to slaughter her son, his classmates, their teachers, and school staff in minutes had been illegal to manufacture in the United States for a decade. The federal assault weapons ban — inspired in part by an elementary school shooting in California — expired in , just before an antisocial kid named Adam became interested in guns and preoccupied with mass murder.

Just before his desperate mom bought an arsenal to bond with him. Noah biting into a bright blue cloud of cotton candy. Noah wearing inflatable swim wings at a pool. Lenny knew online chatter about the shadow government or some such conspiracy was all but inevitable. When a neuroscience graduate student killed 12 and injured dozens of moviegoers with a semiautomatic assault rifle in Aurora in July, five months prior, there had been allegations about government mind control.

A makeshift memorial for Noah Pozner. People called it a false flag. Why did the guns keep changing? Press conferences were analyzed for clues. But what concerned Lenny most was their callous scrutiny of the victims and their families. Others speculated the murdered children never existed at all.

And yet, they also criticized them for not performing their grief well enough. There were even claims specifically about Veronique. Lenny needed to warn her. There was so much news coverage, so many witnesses. Veronique thought he must be exaggerating a few comments from a dark corner of the Web. No, no, no! Truth matters. If I tell my story, people will be able to see that I am a mother who is grieving.

A mourner pays his respects at a memorial to the 19 students at two teachers who were shot to death in May at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Does the grief of so many mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, spouses, partners, loved ones, and friends of those lost in a bloody decade of mass shootings, from a theater in Aurora to a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, from an elementary school in Newtown to one in Uvalde, Texas — and so many other horrors in between — matter?

In the aftermath of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, many Americans still believed it did. They organized and marched, found one another on social media, and formed new organizations that would shape a decade of activism in gun violence prevention. They asked: If not now, when?

If not this, what? Denial of cause and effect. Denial of death and grief. And denial that the uniquely American horror of routine gun massacres was happening at all. In mid-January , the White House rolled out a package of proposals based on the recommendations of a task force led by Vice President Joe Biden, including universal background checks for firearm purchases and a renewed ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

At the same time, the fringe chatter about a false flag at Sandy Hook leapt into the mainstream. In the new algorithmic marketplace of ideas online, it is controversy, not truth, that rises to the top. Doubts about Sandy Hook became the test case that showed how a new generation of outlandish conspiracy theories, born and spread on social media, would poison political discourse, polarize Americans, and paralyze public policy.

Designed to build community, social media platforms brought together trolls with malicious intent and conspiracy theorists with outrageous ideas and promoted their views to, among others, gullible, biased, and unhinged people around the globe. And all of the outrage over the conspiracy theories — the angry shares, the public call-outs, the incredulous mainstream media coverage often linking to conspiracy sites — just fed the cycle more.

By the one-month anniversary, a YouTube video pushing doubts about the shooting had been viewed more than 10 million times in less than two weeks. By the end of January, he said he had been increasingly convinced.

Her energy was flagging. At some point, she thought, I will crash. In late January, she testified before a legislative panel in Hartford in support of new gun laws. When another Sandy Hook parent spoke out against the regulations, she was floored. Outside, gun rights protesters in camo and NRA hats outnumbered those who called for change.

On the drive home in the freezing rain, Veronique wept. Some Newtown parents had gotten together to start a nonprofit, Sandy Hook Promise, to advocate for changes to gun laws and other measures. All Veronique had really wanted was to tell her story. What people do with it now is out of my control. She was done. But Lenny worried about new scrutiny on their family from her testimony. He e-mailed Jones the next day, appealing to him as a longtime fan and a fellow father. Two staffers quickly wrote back.

They assured him that Jones believed Sandy Hook was a real tragedy with real victims. In fact, Jones himself wanted to speak with Lenny. Carver, was at home in Avon, Connecticut, when his phone rang around midnight. Carver hung up but the man kept calling his unlisted number.

He accused Carver of faking the bodies and the assault weapon. Another man called Rabbi Praver, claiming the caskets had been buried empty. The rabbi thought he could reason with the man. The man was unmoved. People who had been publicly connected to the shooting — officials, neighbors, survivors, family members, first responders, religious leaders — received phone calls and e-mails and ugly comments on social media. At the school, the firehouse, the local newspaper, the churches, the charities.

Assumptions became accusations. Spewing lies, the interlopers aggressively demanded truth. Veronique got special attention for being Jewish and talking about guns. She was accused of working for the United Nations. People scrutinized the details of their lives. Veronique and Lenny rented an apartment in Danbury, Connecticut, to live together again with their daughters.

Their former home in Newtown sat empty. The boiler had run dry and the pipes had burst. A cleanup crew worked on the house with a dumpster out front. People sent threats: Someone wrote Veronique on Facebook that she and her family deserved to die.

She closed her account; Lenny reported the threats to the FBI. But the push for federal reform had already stalled. A bipartisan compromise whittled the federal proposal to a sliver: It would just expand the requirement for background checks to firearm purchases at gun shows and online — measures that surveys showed even most gun owners supported. Former US Representative Gabrielle Giffords — still recovering after being gravely wounded in the Tucson mass shooting two years earlier — returned to the Capitol to push for passage.

Still, not enough senators were willing to back even this modest change to gun laws. In the spring of , conspiratorial beliefs were taking hold across the country. When two bombs went off at the Boston Marathon on April 15, Jones, the Florida professor, and many of the others who pushed doubts about Sandy Hook called the bombing a hoax, too.

The next week, a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll exploring the partisan divide over gun control found that 1 in 4 Americans believed facts about Sandy Hook were being hidden from the public to advance a political agenda. But some prominent political observers dismissed the poll because they thought another finding was too unbelievable to be true: Nearly one-third of those surveyed, including almost half of Republicans, said they believed an armed insurrection may soon be necessary in the United States.

Veronique imagined a Chernobyl-like cloud hanging over Newtown. Lenny felt like the Sandy Hook truthers were closing in. But their biggest concern was for their daughters. Newtown was branded with it. Six months after the shooting, they moved to Florida.

We can start again in the sunshine and find some warmth, Lenny thought. When they stopped at a chain hotel near the South Carolina-Georgia line, Lenny went into the lobby to check in. At a certain point, history can never be righted again. Veronique and Lenny rented a town house in Boca Raton, Florida. Pictures of Noah lined bookshelves in the dining room so he could be there for family meals.

Everyone went to counseling. Veronique and Lenny went to a psychic. When their school scheduled mass shooting drills, as many did after Sandy Hook, their parents kept them home. For almost a year, in the absence of comprehensive official reports, speculation about the shooting festered. A few weeks later, State Police released 11, pages of police reports, crime scene photos, call transcripts, and other records. There were redactions and some records were sealed, including crime scene photos showing bodies.

Journalists fought for more records. The Sandy Hook truthers demanded more proof. For months, Lenny had been seeking corrections from news outlets, with mixed success. Every inaccuracy bothered him. Just over a year after he buried his son, Lenny buried his mother. That month, Veronique moved out. They would always support each other, but their reunion had been temporary. Veronique wanted to move the girls to a gated community and hide away. Lenny wanted something else, to be someone else.

The charges were later dropped and he has sued the police. They were led by Wolfgang Halbig, a year-old retiree who rose to prominence on an unctuous appeal for answers to 16 questions about the massacre. Halbig was a portly, German-born, onetime college linebacker with a face like an overripe tomato: If you squeezed his cheeks, he might spit out seeds. He had briefly been a Florida Highway Patrol officer, and worked for a Florida school district, including as security director.

After the Columbine High School shooting, he leveraged his experience into a school safety consulting business. Maybe he was mentally ill, as lawyers would later claim, or feeling unfulfilled. He got no response and felt snubbed. Then, he saw online speculation about the emergency response. Why no trauma helicopters? He called Lieutenant Vance and introduced himself as retired law enforcement. When Vance refused to answer his questions, Halbig was suspicious.

He called Newtown police and other officials multiple times a day and filed dozens soon, hundreds of public record requests. He fixated on small details, such as who ordered port-a-potties to the school in the aftermath. It was instant truther street cred.

At first, Fetzer and others writing for a veterans conspiracy theory website blamed Israel for the Sandy Hook shooting — an allegation picked up by Iranian state TV. Now convinced it was a hoax perpetrated by his own government, Fetzer wore a bulletproof vest under his clothing. The group journeyed through Newtown demanding answers and recording video, trailed by police.

They went to the local United Way, the site of the school it had been razed , and the private, volunteer firehouse. There, Halbig walked into an open truck bay and confronted firefighters with his questions. The men squared off. He backed up just enough for the firefighter to lower the bay door. Halbig laughed, then called He wanted the firefighter charged with assault. That evening, the group rallied in front of town offices in advance of a school board meeting.

A man in Revolutionary War garb hung Governor Malloy in effigy. Gun rights supporters had been coming to Newtown, preaching the gospel of good guys with guns. Now, the Sandy Hook truthers took turns addressing the school board.

We want truth! Not Lenny. He e-mailed Halbig and asked to speak with him. He wanted to invite him to lunch. Maybe, face-to-face, he could reach the doting grandpa inside of Halbig. Another Sandy Hook skeptic, Kelley Watt, acted as intermediary.

That same day, Halbig called the police. Watt had told him that Lenny was at the security gate to his golf course community in Sorrento, Florida. Halbig felt harassed. TV show. It explored paranormal activity, unexplained phenomena such as UFOs, and historical mysteries. A premise, superimposed over reality.

Then, you follow a tangent. As an adult, he listened to Alex Jones, Michael Savage, and other modern conspiracy theorists. What if. Lenny thought all of this gave him special insight into the Sandy Hook truthers. I see what they see. If anyone could get through to them, it was him. Veronique was repulsed at the idea, but she trusted Lenny. More than half of Americans believed the assassination of John F.

Kennedy was a conspiracy, he noted. This would not just go away. Noah Pozner photographed in Then, Lenny released his death certificate. Lenny helped them. Then, he made himself available to anyone with questions. One of the people he corresponded with was Watt, a middle-aged housekeeper from Oklahoma. When Watt saw Cooper on CNN blasting Tracy, the Florida professor and early proponent of the crisis actor theory, she was intrigued and began doing her own research.

She e-mailed hoax videos and memes to Lenny. He sent her debunking links in return. The Sandy Hook Hoax group started on Facebook soon after the shooting. It was macabre. But Lenny told them he respected their right to ask questions. For more than four hours one night on Facebook, members hurled questions, accusations, and insults at Lenny. Lenny told them that witnesses in shock get confused, and people grieve differently. He described the carnage when an assault rifle is turned on little bodies.

Some people asked about a satanic cult or the Freemasons. They said dead kids had been seen alive and people would soon go to jail. He started his own Facebook group called Conspiracy Theorists Anonymous for anyone who still had questions. Some volunteered to help him debunk the lies. But soon Lenny felt like all the honest questions had been answered.

Or people too far gone to reach. With Watt, Lenny encountered the conundrum that journalists, fact-checkers, and academics would reckon with in the years to come: Sometimes, debunking only reinforces beliefs. After dozens of e-mails and phone calls, Watt was more convinced than ever the shooting was a hoax. Why else would Lenny talk to her?

Truth matters, she thought. The shooting occurred while the Conways were hosting a Christmas party with guests which included Gabrielle Giffords. Conway started the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation with several other venture capitalists to encourage the development of gun safety technology, working with organizations like the Sandy Hook Promise. Another recipient, the Avielle Foundation, is also involved in research on violence prevention.

Conway also serves on the board of Americans for Responsible Solutions, a non-profit super PAC formed by Gabrielle Giffords in to help stem gun violence. He founded and chairs sf. Conway supported the successful campaigns of San Francisco mayoral candidates Ed Lee and London Breed, and more recently joined several other tech industry executives and investors to fight efforts to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom.

With former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, he helped establish Project Homeless Connect, which connects the homeless with basic services including medical, dental and vision care and employment assistance.

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The large collection of universities and colleges and tech-rich talent is a plus point for the city. The government support and opportunities for startups are there in Boston. The availability of resources and connections is a vital element that fosters the growth of startups and businesses.

The MassChallenege Business Accelerator Program located in Boston helps entrepreneurs to avail themselves of the resources for their startups. What are the tech-startups in Boston? Boston is the top spot in the U. It is the third-fastest growing tech-hub. The best tech-hubs in Boston are: DraftKings: It is an innovative sports-tech and media entertainment platform.

Founded in , it is the best platform for people to get closer to their favorite sports. Toast: Founded in , it is a cloud-based system built specifically for restaurants. Algorand: Founded in , this tech-startup is based in Boston. It is an open-source software company that is first-of-its-kind. Rocket Insights: It is a product design and development agency, founded in Dispatch Technologies: It is a tech company that provides the software. The company is focused on modernizing the home service experience.

Apple Podcasts Preview episodes In the Decade of Biotech when there will be myriad opportunities to invest in angel-scale biotech startups. After decades of angel investing, I am focusing on the life science side of my portfolio and invite other angels to do the same. Decades of work in international finance followed. During that time, I invested in a handful of ventures founded by friends and acquaintances.

A powerful episode!

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