The Sandy Hook Advisory Commission will meet for the first time in months Friday to consider the law enforcement response to the Newtown shooting and to discuss the state’s attorney’s report on the incident.
The commission was established by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in January following murders last December in Newtown when a gunman entered an elementary school and killed 20 first graders and six adults. Malloy charged the commission with making recommendations on gun violence, mental health, and school safety.
The commission issued an interim report in March when the group recommended a set of gun control policies more restrictive than the regulations eventually passed by the legislature in April.
Although the advisory panel continued to meet periodically until August, it suspended its meetings while Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky III worked to complete his investigation into the shooting.
Friday’s meeting will be the first time the group has convened since Sedensky issued his report last month. Although Sedensky omitted many details in his account of the investigation, Malloy expressed confidence in November that the report provided enough details for the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission to complete its work.
In an editorial published earlier this month in the Huffington Post, Harold Schwartz, a psychiatrist and member of the commission, suggested the Sedensky report shed little light on the shooter’s mental health conditions and what role they played in the incident.
“The public is owed more information. Mental health professionals who might be able to make sense of the details need more information. We all want to know if his condition(s) contributed to the killings,” he wrote.
The panel’s Friday agenda includes a presentation from the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association on the law enforcement response on the day of the shooting. It is also scheduled to discuss Sedensky’s report in general.
The commission will meet at 10 a.m. Friday in room 1C of the Legislative Office Building.
