On the day before the shooting, Mr. Lanza, 20, went to the area around the school, Sandy Hook Elementary, his GPS device showed.
However, after an 11-month investigation, the Connecticut State Police could not determine a motive for the attack, one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings, according to a 48-page report released on Monday.
Mr. Lanza attended Sandy Hook Elementary between 1998 and 2003, but the report found that “the shooter indicated that he loved the school and liked to go there.”
The report, which had long been anticipated, was issued by Stephen J. Sedensky III, the state’s attorney in Danbury. It was drawn from the file of the State Police investigation, some 2,000 pages, according to law enforcement officials.
The horror of the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where Mr. Lanza fatally shot 20 first graders and six adults, has become part of the national psyche. The report depicts Mr. Lanza’s internal life and complicated relationship with his mother, Nancy Lanza, in vivid and chilling detail.
Mr. Lanza changed clothes so often that his mother did his laundry every day, but she was not allowed to enter his bedroom.
He was enthralled by violent video games, including one called “School Shooting,” but he also played “Dance Dance Revolution,” an interactive video game, at a local movie theater Usually dressed in a gray hoodie and slacks, he would play the game, recreating a dance routine, for four to 10 hours at a time.
His mother, who separated from his father, Peter Lanza, in 2001 and lived alone with Adam, was worried about him, saying she could not have a job because he required her constant attention. But there was no sign Ms. Lanza was concerned he would become violent. The police found a check indicating that she had planned to give it to him to buy a firearm for Christmas last year. She also took him to shooting ranges.
By 2012, the report says, Mr. Lanza was not in contact with his father or his older brother, Ryan, who had also moved away. Ms. Lanza was planning to move from Newtown, possibly to Washington or to North Carolina, with Adam. To prepare the house for sale, she intended to buy a recreational vehicle for Adam to sleep in because he refused to go to a hotel.
On Dec. 13 at 10 p.m., Ms. Lanza returned from her three-day trip, to New Hampshire.
The next morning, her son shot and killed her in her bed at close range. The .22-caliber rifle that he used was found later by her bedside.
He then went to Sandy Hook Elementary armed with 30-round magazines for a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, along with several other weapons. Shortly after 9:30 he blasted his way through the plate-glass window at the locked front entrance.
In less than 10 minutes Mr. Lanza fired 154 rounds from the rifle, killing the 26 children and staff members. At 9:40, he took his own life with a pistol.
“He was wearing a pale green pocket vest over a black polo-style short-sleeve shirt over a black T-shirt,” according to the report. “He had yellow colored earplugs in each ear. He was wearing black cargo pocket pants, black socks, black sneakers, a black canvas belt and black fingerless gloves on each hand. He had an empty camouflage drop holster that was affixed to his right thigh.”
The report comes nearly a year after the massacre set off a national discussion about gun control, mental health and violence in American popular culture. In that time, families of the victims have struggled to put their lives back together, the town has tried to heal and the school itself has been razed. But, until Monday, very little information compiled by investigators had been publicly released.
Even basic facts, like the exact path Mr. Lanza took inside the school, were kept secret.
After the shooting, the Connecticut Legislature passed bills to limit what could be made public. The state has also fought to prevent the release of the recordings of the emergency calls to 911 from people inside the school.
Judge Eliot Prescott of New Britain Superior Court said at a hearing on Monday morning that he would review the tapes and soon decide whether to release them.
Family members of the victims were permitted to view a draft of the report earlier this month.
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=17911
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
No comments:
Post a Comment