Searching for hope in Sandy Hook latest documents

The cold facts of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings on Dec. 14, 2012 do not change. A 20-year-old introvert killed his mother in her bed of their Newtown home, shot his way into the locked school, and within 11 minutes 20 first graders and six educators were dead. Then the shooter killed himself in a classroom.

The facts do not change, but reading them again — this time in the form of FBI documents released to the public this week — stings with the same shock of nearly five years ago.

We want to look away. We want to not think about it, not go back to the horror that may be out of mind for stretches of time, but never out of hearts.

But look we must. If there are lessons to be learned, actions that could be taken to prevent future tragedies, we must look and confront.

The FBI documents — 1,500 pages, many of them heavily redacted — were released only under compliance with a Freedom of Information request. The public needs to know what they contain; considering the importance, they should have been released much sooner.

As it is, so many names and other identifying information are blocked out that it is difficult to give appropriate weight to the statements. How reliable is the perception of a friend of Nancy Lanza, recollecting what Nancy told her, but who had never met her son, Adam? How much is hearsay and how much is first-hand information? The documents do not say and there is no FBI summary in what was released this week.

Even so, in reading the documents two truths stand out: More attention is needed on mental health issues, and people who suspect something is wrong should speak up.

An acquaintance who communicated with Adam Lanza only through sites such as Tumblr.com told the FBI that Lanza wrote of nightmares; in one a victim in a school “took out a gun and started shooting the bullies” and Lanza tried to help the shooter. He was a “very unhappy and disturbed person, who was focused completely on spree killings and mass murders,” the person interviewed said. And yet, Lanza, a vegan who did not smoke, drink or use drugs, never actually threatened to harm anyone, the acquaintance said.

Before high school, Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. One unidentified person told the FBI he was bullied “but not excessively, for his social awkwardness and his physical” gait. After ninth grade, his mother removed him from public school and taught him at home. Should schools do more to deal with bullying? With mental health issues?

Sandy Hook Promise, a grassroots organization formed in response to the shootings, has initiated programs to help reduce bullying and social isolation. These need to be extended to every school.

Nicole Hockley, a Sandy Hook Promise founding director whose 6-year-old son Dylan was killed in his classroom, showed amazing resolve when she said she was reading the FBI documents with a sense of hope.

If she can do this, so must we.