Firm: We will demolish Newtown shooter's home for free
NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Newtown's first selectwoman says a construction company with ties to the town has offered to demolish at no cost the home of Sandy Hook school shooter Adam Lanza.
The News-Times reports that First Selectwoman Pat Llodra said Tuesday that representatives of Manafort Brothers are expected to meet with town officials this week to discuss the details and possibly set a date to demolish the house where Lanza and his mother lived.
He killed her on Dec. 14, 2012, before heading to Sandy Hook Elementary School where he fatally shot 20 students and six educators and then committed suicide.
Manafort's offer would save about $30,000 Newtown planned to spend with money from an insurance fund set aside for costs associated with the shootings. The fund was used to demolish the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2013.
Last week, a panel created by the governor after the Newtown school shooting released a set of draft recommendations for improvements to school safety and changes to gun laws and the state's mental health care system.
The 256-page draft report from the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission was posted online. The panel appointed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy gathered input over more than two years from experts and others, including victims' family members. Members are expected to meet Friday to make modifications to the draft report and eventually present the final document to Malloy, possibly in early March.
Early in the report, commission members concede "no school can be totally free of the risk of violence," short of transforming them into gated, prison-like facilities. But the group recommends safe school design and operation strategies and closer coordination with law enforcement, mental health experts and security professionals as a way to help make safer school environments possible.
"Accomplishing these goals can actually improve the educational eco-system and create safe school climates that allow students, teachers and staff to flourish and excel," the report reads.
Some of the recommendations, especially those focusing on gun control, were included in an interim report in 2013 that called for ensuring classroom doors can be locked from the inside, limits on ammunition purchases and the registration of all firearms in the state.
Questions about Lanza's mental state and his access to treatment prompted the commission to closely examine Connecticut's mental health system, which the draft report called "fragmented and underfunded" and "tainted by stigma."
The group is recommending the state build a system that goes beyond treating mental illness and fosters healthy families and individuals.
In November, the Office of Child Advocate, which investigates all child deaths in the state, concluded that "weaknesses and lapses in the educational and healthcare systems' response and untreated mental illness played in Adam Lanza's deterioration."
At different stages of his childhood, Lanza was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Asperger syndrome. The report says that Lanza resisted taking medication for his anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - a decision that was apparently supported by his mother. Lanza also apparently disagreed with his Asperger's diagnosis.
The report concluded that the school system cared about Lanza's success but also "unwittingly enabled Mrs. Lanza's preference to accommodate and appease" him.