Report: Sandy Hook Shooter Encouraged by 'Cyber Community of Mass Murder Enthusiasts'

An investigative report released Friday details some of the treatment that was offered to Adam Lanza years before he committed the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and it says he was in email contact with a group of mass murder enthusiasts prior to the attack.

The report, by the state Office of the Child Advocate, cites several red warning flags that popped up during Lanza’s life and included examples of denial by family members and missed opportunities to address underlying mental health issues.

Lanza went to Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012 armed with an AR-15 rifle and other firearms. He killed 20 children and six educators. Before going to the school he shot his mother Nancy Lanza in the head. He committed suicide before police could reach him.

The report emphasized that any lapses in care could not be directly linked to the mass murder.

“No direct line of causation can be drawn from these to the horrific mass murder at Sandy Hook,” the report stated.

“There is no way to adequately explain why AL (Adam Lanza) was obsessed with mass shootings and how or why he came to act on this obsession. In the end, only he, and he alone, bears responsibility for this monstrous act,” the report went on to say.

The report made mention of guns as a public health issue.

“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 (Adam Lanza) 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 tobe a critical public health issue.”

Over the past months of Lanza’s life, the report said, “he was closely connected to a small community of individuals that shared his dark and obsessive interest in mass murder.”

On July 23, 2012, he wrote to a cyber-acquaintance: “My interest in massmurdered [sic] has been perfunctory for such a long time. The enthusiasm [I had] back when Virginia Tech happened feels like it’s been gone for a hundred billion years. I don’t care about anything. I’m just done with it all.”

These new cyber-fanatics largely took the place of peers and positive influences, the report stated.

“Replacing these influences was a narrow group of peers who exerted no positive, regulating force on AL,” the report said. “Unlike normalizinginfluences and positive community peer groups, his cyber group would have had little willingness orability to stop his dangerous trajectory or to offer cautioning feedback to him about his impulses.”

According to the report:

• Lanza was completely untreated in the years prior to the shooting.
• Lanza displayed significant developmental challenges from “the earliest childhood.”
• There were early indications of his preoccupation with violence, such as graphic writing that appeared to be largely not addressed by schools and possibly his parents.
• The Yale Child Study Center recommended extensive educational supports, consultation and rigorous therapeutic support, but the recommendations went largely unheeded.
• Lanza’s resistance to recommended medication for anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder appeared to be reinforced by his mother.
• Psychological testing performed by the school district indicated Lanza had average cognitive abilities, despite being cast as intellectually gifted.
• Records indicate the school system cared about Lanza’s success but “unwittingly” enables his mother’s preference to accommodate and appease him.
• It appears that Lanza and his parents didn’t participate in any mental health treatment after 2008.
• Lanza become increasingly preoccupied with mass murder and it was encouraged by a cyber community of mass murder enthusiasts with whom he was in communication with.
• It appears that the Yale Child Study Center was the only provider who seemed to appreciate the gravity of Lanza’s needs.

Some recommendations going forward from the report:

• A system must be put in place to universally screen children ages birth to 21 for behavioral health and developmental impairments.
• “...evaluation by outside experts should be available to clinical and educational decision making.”
• Teachers, administrators, pediatricians, parents, etc. need access and training concerning mental health issues.
• Special education teams shouldn’t need to focus on the “right” or one aspect of a child’s disability and treatment should be holistic for the totality of disabilities and challenges.
• The state should consider auditing existing homebound procedures and procedures.

Sandy Hook Nov 21 Report

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