The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Families: Release of killer’s info timed poorly
NEWTOWN — Families who lost loved one in the Sandy Hook massacre decried not only the poor timing of new reports about mass shooter Adam Lanza’s depravity, but said the reports contain nothing really new.
“I guess for some people it’s kind of shocking,” said Neil Heslin, whose son was slain. “But quite honestly it was nothing that I didn’t already know about.”
Heslin and several other Sandy Hook families were reacting to documents released under court order by state police to The Hartford Courant about the depths of Lanza’s disturbances.
News reports that Lanza expressed scorn for humanity and was desperate to feel affection for another person in his life come just days before the sixth anniversary of the worst crime in Connecticut history on Dec. 14, 2012, when Lanza killed his mother, shot his way into a locked Sandy Hook School, and killed 26 first-graders and educators before killing himself.
The latest documents provide fresh support for what previous reports have confirmed about Lanza – that he was so emaciated and socially isolated at the time of the shooting he had shunned his only friend, his mother, to the point that he stayed in his locked bedroom, communicating only through email.
“I think nobody is surprised at the level of disturbance that was clearly going on in his mind,” said Mary Ann Jacob, who was a library clerk in the school on the day of the shooting. “The constant revelation of details and new information about him does nothing but hurt the Sandy Hook families.”
If it seems like especially bad timing to be breaking news about Lanza, it’s because it is, families say.
“Yes, it was terrible timing,” said Scarlett Lewis, the mother of a boy who was among the 26 first-graders and educators slain at Sandy Hook.
For Sandy Hook families and many other families in Newtown, the season leading up to the Dec. 14 anniversary is a time to focus on the joy the loved one brought to life, while trying not to dwell on the sorrow of their loss and the trauma of the day that took them away.
Headlines about the grave state-of-mind of their loved ones’ killer hamper those efforts.
Moreover, stories about Lanza’s deteriorating mental health and his fascination with mass murder divert attention away from ways to reduce gun violence, says Abbey Clements, a former elementary school teacher in Newtown who was in the Sandy Hook School the day of the shooting.
“Why don’t we focus on the easy access to guns for those who commit these horrific, horrific murders, such as the one that happened here?” Clements said.
The release of documents from Lanza’s home follows a report in mid-October by two former educators that the Newtown school district did everything it could to meet the needs of Lanza while he was a school child.
Their report was in response to a 2014 finding by the Office of the Child Advocate that Newtown schools and Lanza’s parents missed opportunities to treat his mental health disorders, while stating that no one but Adam Lanza himself was to blame for the heinous crime.