shooting at sandy hook elementary school - report of the office of the child advocate
SHOOTING AT SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
REPORT OF THE OFFICE OF THE CHILD ADVOCATE - State of Connecticut
… .In January, 2013, the Office of the Child Advocate was directed by the Connecticut Child Fatality Review Panel to prepare a report that would focus on Adam Lanza (hereinafter referred to as AL), and include a review of the circumstances that pre-dated his commission of mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The charge was to develop any recommendations for public health system improvement that emanated from the review. Authors of this report focused on AL’s developmental, educational, and mental health profile over time, the services he received from various community providers, and ultimately his condition prior to his actions on December 14, 2012.
Authors looked for any warning signs, red flags, or other lessons that could be learned from a review of AL’s life. It was not the primary purpose of this investigation to explicitly examine the role of guns in the Sandy Hook shootings. However, the conclusion cannot be avoided that access to guns is relevant to an examination of ways to improve the public health. Access to assault weapons with high capacity magazines did play a major role in this and other mass shootings in recent history. Our emphasis on AL’s developmental trajectory and issues of mental illness should not be understood to mean that these issues were considered more important than access to these weapons or that we do not consider such access to be a critical public health issue.
It is important to state at the outset that this report is crafted with recognition of the lives lost on December 14, and authors have a deep sense of compassion for the families of the children and adults who were murdered by AL. To honor the terrible loss of life, authors strove to create a comprehensive and candid report that we hope will inform approaches to making other children, families, and communities safer in the future.
…
18. AL and his parents did not appear to seek or participate in any mental health treatment after 2008. No sustained input from any mental health provider is documented in AL’s
educational record or medical record after 2006.19. Though AL was profoundly impaired by anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, his
parents may not have understood the depth or implications of his disabilities, including his
need for ongoing support.
More: sandyhook11212014.pdf
Bad Parenting may be part of the problem, but knowing the cause, after the fact, doesn’t prevent other tragedies UNLESS WE TAKE ACTION AS A COMMUNITY, AS A NATION.
We either put children first or we are lost.
*soapbox off*