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Sandy Hook Advisory Commission Still Has Limited Access to Records

Chion Wolf
/
WNPR

This week, The New Yorker published an article by Andrew Solomon featuring an extended interview with Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza.

A member of Governor Dannel Malloy’s Sandy Hook Advisory Commission said the interview does provide more information on the killer's medical and psychological background, but the commission has had limited access to other information while putting together its report.

The commission has tried to see original medical and educational records, but it lacks subpoena power.

Dr. Hank Schwartz, the psychiatrist-in-chief at Hartford Hospital's Institute of Living, spoke on WNPR's Where We Live. He said the commission has tried to see original medical and educational records, but it lacks subpoena power.

“We have access to nothing other than what you as a citizen [have],” he said. “Those are the documents, many of which were extremely redacted in the presentation, or dump of documents, by the state police.”

Those documents consisted of thousands of pages of material. The commission received limited assistance in sifting through it all.

Schwartz said, “We have had pro bono assistance from Dan Klau, who has put these documents into an online system we can use to sift through them -- but it's a very laborious process.” Klau is an attorney for the commission.

Schwartz said a few members of the commission will be able to view some of the records in the Office of the Child Advocate later this week, but the records remain confidential.

Tucker Ives is WNPR's morning news producer.

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