CT State Police Seek to Bury Lanza Evidence, Appeal FOI Decision by James Tracy from Memoryhole

July 8, 2015

CT State Police Seek to Bury Lanza Evidence, Appeal FOI Decision ⁸⁰

by James Tracy • News • Tags: censorship, press freedom, Sandy Hook Elementary

State Police Spokesman J. Paul Vance speaks December 16, 2012 following the Sandy Hook massacre. [Image Credit: Getty Images]

The Connecticut State Police is attempting to keep under wraps items it gathered at the residence of Nancy and Adam Lanza during its initial investigation of the incident. On June 26 it appealed a unanimous decision by the Connecticut FOI Commission to release the evidence following a request by The Hartford Courant.

CTNow reports:

State police have appealed a Freedom of Information Commission ruling that the department must make available personal documents seized from Adam Lanza’s home during the course of the investigation into the 2012 killings of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The appeal was filed on June 26. In addition to the FOIC, it names the Hartford Courant and David Altimari, a reporter at the Courant, as defendants.

The appeal asks the court to reverse a May 13 unanimous decision by the commission that state police must make documents seized from Lanza’s home available to the public. The commission made the ruling, in part, because of the state’s expense investigating the Sandy Hook shooting and the worldwide media attention the shooting garnered.
The ruling “failed to conclude that seized property is under the control of the judicial branch and thus is not a public record,” the appeal contends.
The Courant attempted to obtain copies of documents noted in the state police’s investigation into the massacre beginning in January of 2014, but the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which oversees the state’s police force, has been blocking those efforts.

Previous moves by Newtown and Connecticut authorities closely involved in the Sandy Hook shooting event and aftermath strongly suggest efforts to destroy and withhold evidence that would have enabled journalists and third party investigators to better understand what exactly took place on December 14, 2012.
The Lanza residence–the initial crime scene of the massacre–was demolished in March 2015 following a decision by the Newtown Legislative Council. The secondary crime scene, Sandy Hook Elementary, was leveled in October 2013 after Governor Dannell Malloy provided $50 million grant to destroy and rebuild the facility.