On April 4, 2013, AbleChild.org filed an appeal with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) seeking release of Adam Lanza’s medical records held by the Connecticut Medical Examiner’s Office. That appeal, prepared by Emord & Associates and filed by the Heitke Law Office (Rhode Island), contests the Connecticut Medical Examiner’s refusal to disclose the shooter’s records.
While state and federal lawmakers frantically push for massive mental health reform and sweeping gun control laws, two Connecticut mothers recently took to the streets of Newtown, connecting with local residents and gathering signatures on a petition that asks a simple but essential question -did prescription psychiatric drugs play a role in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting?
Seems like an easy and obvious question that, remarkably, has escaped the consideration of legislators who seem hell-bent on legislating increased mental health services without first having all the necessary information to make thoughtful, fact-based decisions.
In a frenzied cry for gun-control, the media is rife with details about the firearms Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children and six adults before turning a handgun on himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012. But information about Lanza’s medical history is scarce, feeding speculation that he may fit the profile of school shooters under the influence of psychotherapeutic medication.
“In virtually every mass school shooting during the past 15 years, the shooter has been on or in withdrawal from psychiatric drugs,” observed Lawrence Hunter of the Social Security Institute.
A mother who is an advocate certified under the state General Assembly, Sabato suspects Lanza may have been taking psychiatric drugs that triggered the mass shooting. She’s organized a petition drive and garnered more than 200 signatures in two days around Newtown calling for the state to release Lanza’s autopsy/toxicologyrecords. She’s also testified before a state legislative sub committee studying mental health services in the wake of the Dec. 14 shooting.
“Adam Lanza wasn’t born evil,” Sabato said. “We want the records before they ask for more money for mental health, which could be dangerous. We want the records to know what kind of mental health treatment he was receiving. We need to know what he was taking.”
For the first time ever, and for a brief moment in time, two knowledgeable and highly credentialed public figures have commented on the fact that psychiatric medications cause violence and must be considered suspect in the case of the Newtown shooter. But then, as if it never happened, and as if psychiatric drugs could not possibly be implicated in violence, the issue was dropped by the media.