Report due on Newtown shooting probe

A report on the Newtown school shooting, which left 20 children and six personnel inside Sandy Hook Elementary School dead last year, is to be released Monday afternoon. However, it is a summary report.

According to The Associated Press, the report by State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky III could provide some of the first official answers to questions about the history of the gunman and the police response to the incident, one of the worst shootings in American history. However, the AP said, it will not include the full evidence file of Connecticut State Police, which is believed to total thousands of pages.

Dan Klau, a Hartford attorney who specializes in First Amendment law, said the decision to release a summary report is a reversal of standard practice.

“What I found troubling about the approach of the state’s attorney is that from my perspective, he seems to have forgotten his job is to represent the state of Connecticut,” Klau said. “His conduct in many instances has seemed more akin to an attorney in private practice representing Sandy Hook families.”

Sedensky has gone to court to stop release of the 911 tapes from the school, according to the AP. The withholding of 911 recordings, which are routinely released in other cases, has been the subject of a legal battle between the AP and Sedensky before the state’s Freedom of Information Commission, which ruled in favor of the AP, and now Connecticut’s court system.

According to the news agency, a hearing is scheduled Monday in New Britain Superior Court on whether the judge can hear the recordings as he considers an appeal.

The Dec. 14 shooting elevated gun safety to the top of the agenda for President Barack Obama. It also led all US states to re-evaluate laws on issues including school safety.

The shooter was twenty-year-old Adam Lanza who killed his mother inside their Newtown home before massacring the children at the elementary school. Lanza killed himself with a handgun after the shooting.

Since the deadly shooting, nearly 31,000 people have been killed in gun violence across the US, according to slate.com.

ARA/ARA