Better screening and evaluation might have stopped Adam Lanza from killing 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Dec. 14, 2012, according to a report expected to be issued next month by the Connecticut Office of Child Advocate. Lanza also killed his mother and himself. The Child Fatality Review Board requires the Child Advocate’s office to conduct an investigation of the shooter.
Hamden (Conn.) Mayor Scott Jackson, the chairman of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, said Friday Lanza didn’t have to become a violent adult, according to Mail Online. Lanza was evaluated by therapists at the Yale Child Study Center before he entered Newtown High, but his information wasn’t shared with the high school officials, according to the report. Lanza attended the school before his mother removed him in the 10th grade to home-school him.
Jackson said if Lanza’s mental state had been properly accessed as a child and as a teenager, it “could have impacted his propensity for violence” as an adult.
The commission is pulling together recommendations on mental health services, school security and gun control. They also decided last Friday, according to CT News Junkie, not to do anything from Nov. 14 to the end of December out of respect for the second anniversary of the shooting.