Why The Courant is publishing Adam Lanza documents

The Courant today is revealing new information about what was in the heart and mind of the most heinous killer in the state’s history, Adam Lanza. In a depraved act of homicidal rage, Lanza wiped out 26 lives at Sandy Hook Elementary School six years ago.

Why is this information coming out now? Why six years later?

Because the state tried to hide it from public view.

The state hid the writings, reports and records not just from the press, but from researchers, experts and clinicians who could have learned more about what early warning signs might have been missed; what educators and clinicians need to pay attention to when dealing with angry, lonely children; what prevention strategies might be helpful in preventing another such tragedy from ever happening again.

The state even kept this from the very experts it had asked to help it understand the horrible events of Dec. 14, 2012. As part of The Courant’s reporting on these documents, we asked one of those experts as well as others to help us better understand the potential lessons hidden within Lanza’s words. They should have seen them years ago.

But, in an act of government overreach, the documents were kept in a box.

We won’t pretend to understand the motives of those who made that decision. Perhaps there was a belief that this information might bring fresh pain to the families of the victims and would best be left unseen. The legal basis for denying public access was that the records and documents seized from the Lanza household in Newtown were private property and not subject to state open records laws. That argument was undone by the state Supreme Court in a case argued jointly by The Courant and the state’s Freedom of Information Commission.

But what was clear all along was that this wasn’t just any property seized in any investigation in any home. The information had value to those who wanted to make sure no parent ever had to live through the kind of horror the Sandy Hook families were forced to endure. The information should have been made public immediately. There was a greater good here that far outweighed any purported property right.

There is a reason newspapers fight so hard to protect open access to records and information. Certainly we want to tell the stories we think need to be told with the information we think is necessary to tell them. But it is also vital to make sure public officials act as the custodians of these records, not the owners. That they never be allowed to selectively dole out information to serve their own agendas.

It is not their right to decide what’s relevant. It’s yours. These documents never should have been hidden.

A free society thrives on transparency.