Officials: Sandy Hook report nearing end

Ken Dixon
Updated 11:30 pm, Friday, September 6, 2013

HARTFORD -- Nearly nine months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, state investigators are closer to finally releasing a report on the shooting spree that left 28 dead in Newtown.

Chief State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane told a task force on victim privacy Wednesday that State Police are finalizing reports on the carnage wrought by Adam Lanza.

Those reports are to be reviewed by Danbury Assistant State's Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III, who is leading the inquiry into the Dec. 14 shootings and will write a summation of the crime for release sometime in the fall.

"The state police have been working very, very hard just to compile all the reports that have to be compiled," Kane said to the panel of state officials, lawmakers, attorneys and members of the news media who have until Jan. 1 to recommend changes to the state Freedom of Information Act. "We are in the process of that and, hopefully, it will get done fairly soon."

After the meeting of the 14-member group, Kane said in the Legislative Office Building that he expects the report in the next month or two.

"I know all the work is being done as fast as we can," Kane told several reporters.

"In fact, the state police have made combinations to free up the people who have to finish writing up the reports. They're freed from doing other things. They can't go out of state, which is a good thing, so they can spend time working on this."

In recent months Connecticut police investigators have come under criticism for revealing details of the school crime scene at law enforcement conventions around the country, where details have been reported by news media.

Kane said Western District state troopers have been freed up from working daily crime details through arrangements made with the Eastern District and the Central District.

The state's top criminal attorney made his remarks during a 2 1/2 hour meeting of the task force on victim privacy under the state Freedom of Information Act, which was created by the General Assembly under the June legislation that prohibited the release of murder-scene photos and police recordings from Sandy Hook School until May of 2014.

Sedensky confirmed Kane's assessment. "I'm working with state police on the case and I expect to have a report out in the fall," Sedensky said Wednesday.

Lanza killed his mother with a single rifle shot, then drove to the school, where he shot 20 first-graders and six adults with a now-banned military-style rifle before committing suicide.

The task force was put together to study the ramifications of the new law and make recommendations for changes to the state's 38-year-old Freedom of Information Act.

There are 27 clear exemptions preventing the release of information and possibly hundreds more so-called limited exemptions scattered throughout state law, according to Mary E. Schwind, managing director and associate general counsel for the Freedom of Information Commission, which is run by a five-member panel that receives about 800 complaints per year.

Schwind said that state officials should expect the vast majority of state-generated information, even personnel files, to be public records.

"The assumption is that it's public," she said. "There is no general exemption for personal privacy."

Schwind said that current law prevents the FOIC from weighing the desire of parents to suppress murder-scene photos against state rules on the public's right to know.

Parents and Newtown officials have been concerned that murder-scene photos could be spread over the Internet, so after weeks of lobbying, the Legislature approved the one-year moratorium. For months after the massacre, Town Clerk Debbie A. Aurelia refused to release copies of death certificates in violation of state law, before finally relenting.

The lines of future arguments on the task force became clearer during Wednesday's meeting, when Kane, Hakima Bey-Coon, staff attorney for the state Office of the Victim Advocate, and Antoinette Webster, staff attorney for the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, made arguments for expanding the list of exemptions.

The future battleground may be over the definition of what type of information is "highly offensive" and of "legitimate public concern" for "reasonable" people.
John Pirro contributed to this story.

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