Newtown braces for release of report Monday on school shooting

NEWTOWN, Connecticut - Connecticut officials are due to release a long-awaited report on Monday of the shooting almost one year ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School that took the lives of 20 children and six adults. The state prosecutor's office has said the report will be published on the website of Connecticut's Division of Criminal Justice, www.ct.gov/csao, at about 3:00 p.m. EST (2000 GMT). At Newtown High School, about a mile and a half from the largely demolished Sandy Hook school building, there was little indication of enhanced security as students arrived on Monday at around 7:00 a.m. (1200 GMT). While the large informal memorials that arose in this town of 27,000 residents in the days after the shooting have long been removed, small commemorations are sprinkled throughout the sprawling town. Last year, on the morning of Dec. 14, Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in her bed in their Newtown home, and then forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School, which he once attended. There, he claimed 26 more lives before turning the gun on himself. On Yogananda Street, where Lanza had lived with his mother, neighbors continue to decorate their mailboxes with ribbons of green and white, the Sandy Hook school colors. The Lanza home remains vacant but the lawn has been mowed and raked free of autumn leaves. Mark Dupuis, a spokesman for State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky III, declined to say whether the report has been shared with the families of those who died in the shooting, but he said his office was aware of families' concerns about privacy and had taken steps to address those concerns. In a series of emails to Newtown parents last week, John Reed, the town's interim schools superintendent, addressed the report's release and cautioned parents to be mindful of their childrens' emotional well-being. "By supporting one another, we will work our way through these challenging circumstances," Reed said. A Connecticut law passed earlier this year said that some evidence from the state's investigation will never be made available to the public. The law, passed in response to the shooting, prohibits the release of photographs, film, video and other visual images showing a homicide victim if they can "reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of the victim or the victim's surviving family members." — Reuters