State of Connecticut – Office of the Child Advocate, released it’s Report on the Shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The report is 114 pages and is as comprehensive as possible. It has a lot of observations and recommendations for educators, school administrators, physicians, and mental health/child development professionals. All such professionals would benefit from reading the report.
It adds depth to last year’s report issued by the CT State Attorney office but doesn’t significantly change the earlier findings. My read of that report, presented in Don’t Know Why – Sandy Hook Elementary School was accurate. One point that the OCA investigators were able to piece together is that AL did plan the school massacre. It wasn’t a spontaneous and impulsive act. That makes it all the more horrendous. Yet, it also means that there were a few markers that may have prevented it. Access to guns in the home of a child or young adult exhibiting obvious psycho-social issues is not recommended.
For parents, denial of a child’s physical and psycho-social issues is very bad medicine. Early diagnosis and treatment protocols is good medicine. That didn’t happen in AL’s life even though his parents, particularly his mother, were loving and caring. His development language deficits should have been diagnosed sooner. He should always have remained under the care of medical professionals that coordinated the medical and educational interventions. At various times, he was anorexic and never treated. At his death he was a six feet tall, 112 pounds malnourished twenty year old. That alone diminished his cognitive capacities.
What is missing from the report IMHO is a family systems analysis. What environmental dynamics were in play when AL did well and when he didn’t do well. He began deteriorating in 2003 when he was eleven years old and for the most part the deterioration was progressive. While numerous change factors begin at such an age, and are likely most of the story for AL, it was also when his mother could focus more exclusively on his wants. 2006, when he was evaluated at the Yale Child Study Center would also have been when his older brother left to attend college.
Finally, Mrs. Lanza had some serious issues. She led her family to believe that she had MS or some other undefined serious health issue that was going to kill her. She could bear it without complaints for the benefit of her family. IOW, a martyr. The investigation could find no record of Mrs. Lanza having been diagnosed with MS or any other disease. A whole system approach instead limiting evaluations to the identified patient might have been valuable in this situation. Or worth an attempt because Mrs. Lanza wasn’t exactly cooperative with health professionals,
The authors of this report submit this work with acknowledgement of the 27 individuals murdered on December 14, 2012, and the terrible and incalculable loss suffered by all victims. Authors convey condolences for these losses and the grief that continues to be felt by the victims, families, and the community. We acknowledge and honor the lives of the twenty first graders who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School; they have been the sole reason for this report.