Connecticut State Police Release Sandy Hook Shooting Report

By Gary Jeanfaivre

An investigative police report that provides the most detailed information to date about the shootings in Sandy Hook is now public.

Connecticut State Police made the report available online at 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 27. It includes 7,000 pages of documents, video clips, audio files, and photographs that were gathered as part of the department's investigation into the shootings at the Lanza household and Sandy Hook School on Dec. 14, 2012.

To view the report in its entirety, visit this newly created page on the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection website.

The investigation took tens of thousands of hours and stands as the single-largest effort in Connecticut State Police history.

"This investigation is unparalleled in the one hundred and ten year history of the Connecticut State Police,” Commissioner Reuben F. Bradford writes in an introductory letter that also provides legal explanations for redactions made to the report. [His letter is embedded with this article.]

“Balancing the often-competing interests of government transparency and individual privacy has been difficult," he states. "I believe that the redacted report that is being released includes as much detail as possible while protecting confidential information and without unduly infringing on the privacy rights of those whose lives have been so profoundly impacted through no fault of their own.”

The release comes about two weeks after the 1-year anniversary of the shootings, which left six educators and 20 students dead at the elementary school. The 20-year-old shooter killed his mother at their nearby home before heading to the school, and he took his own life as police arrived.

While details of the investigation have been leaked during the past year and police have been pressured to release the report, including by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, there has also been an effort to keep as much information private as possible.

Newtown Police Department, along with State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky, unsuccessfully fought the release of the 911 tapes from the morning of Dec. 14, 2012. The tapes were released earlier this month, about a week after Sedensky released his office's 44-page summary report.

Newtown community members and town officials, including First Selectman Pat Llodra, have said that each time information is released wounds that are still healing are reopened.

“I hope that the release of this report, though painful, will allow those who have been affected by it to continue in their personal process of healing, and will provide helpful information that can be put to use to prevent such tragedies in the future,” Bradford writes.