With the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre about a month away, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Tuesday that the official report on the incident should have been released already.
Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky has been working to compile a final report on the Dec. 14 murder of 20 children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown.
The governor said prosecutors have concerns about personal information that might be contained in the report. They have been going “painstakingly” through the report to ensure they do not release identifying information like social security numbers, he said.
“I’m frustrated that the report has not yet been issued,” Malloy told reporters in Farmington, before stressing that state’s attorneys don’t work for him directly. The state’s attorney’s work for the division of criminal justice, an independent agency in the executive branch.
“So that people understand this, they don’t work for me. So I’ll put it a different way: if they did, this report would be out already,” he said.
Given the amount of time it has taken, Malloy suggested that the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office should have devoted more staff to putting the report together.
A spokesman for the Division of Criminal Justice and Sedensky declined to comment on the number of personnel working on the report.
Malloy said his chief of staff has been in contact with the prosecutors’ office, but said he has not been personally briefed about what will be included in the report.
“This has gone on longer than any of us would have liked and certainly is not representative of how I would have handled the timing of the report. It needs to get out. It needs to get out this week, next week, it needs to get out,” he said.
Malloy was at the Farmington Club Tuesday for the Connecticut School Construction Coalition’s “School Facility Security Products and Services Day.” He announced a second wave of state funding to help local school districts bolster their school security systems in response to the Newtown shooting.
Together with funds announced in September, the state has now directed $21 million in bond funds to reimburse local districts for their efforts to harden their existing school infrastructure. The money will help fund projects at 604 schools in 111 different school districts. Depending on the project, towns are being reimbursed between 20 and 80 percent of the total cost.
“We’re talking about infrastructure projects consisting of the installation of surveillance cameras, bullet proof glass, electric locks, buzzers and card entry systems, and panic alarms,” he said.
Lawmakers approved $15 million in state bonding for school security under legislation that included stricter gun control restrictions back in April. The Malloy administration found another $6 million in previously approved bonding to direct toward schools that applied for security grants.
Malloy said no amount of infrastructure hardening will be able to prevent every act of violence at schools, but the state was obligated to make them as safe as possible. He said he expects to make announcements devoting more money to similar projects in the future.
With the anniversary of the shooting “just around the corner,” Malloy said he expects a fair amount of discussion about what took place and how Connecticut responded to it.
“I can tell you I feel the state has responded admirably and that we are leading in the area of school security again,” he said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct a mistake regarding where the state’s attorneys work. They work for the executive branch and not the judicial branch.