‘Glee’ School Shooting Episode ‘Too Soon’ for Newtown, Parent Says

Sandy Hook father wishes show had reached out to parents to warn them

A Newtown, Conn., parent says he wishes Fox or "Glee" had reached out to parents in the community before airing an episode of the show that depicted a school shooting.

David Paley, whose children survived the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, told CNN's Carol Costello that he didn't take issue with the content of the show, because he doesn't normally watch it and hasn't seen the episode. 

"We're in a healing process here in Newtown, and it's too soon for those of us so close to what happened on 12/14," he said. "It would have reopened wounds that we're trying to heal."

Paley said he and other parents wished Fox or "Glee" had reached out to them prior to airing Thursday's episode, which opened with a warning that it addressed school violence.

"We have no problem — at least the parents I've spoken to — that they aired an episode that had a school shooting. It's reality, it happened. It happened here, it happened at Columbine, it happened in many other places," he said. "What's really upsetting is that no one — none of the producers — reached out to the town of Newtown to let us residents who are so close to this know that this episode was airing."

Paley said that friends who are fans of the show would have been upset by it. The school superintendent sent a letter to parents warning them of the episode's subject matter.

"It would have just been a shocker to them if they didn't know what this episode was about," he said.

Costello also asked Paley if he believed Congress — now debating gun control — should be debating violence in the media as well. He said guns, mental health and and media portrayals should all be discussed, though they didn't necessarily need to be debated simultaneously. 

Watch the interview:

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