A pair of Newtown police cruisers man the entrance to Hawley School at 29 Church Hill Road in Newtown, Conn. on Monday, November 25, 2013, the day the state's attorney's report of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings was released. Photo: Brian A. Pounds
NEWTOWN -- Police Chief Michael Kehoe said Tuesday that the release of an investigative report on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings should remove any doubt about the way local police responded to the tragedy.
Given the "small amount of accurate information" available to the first Newtown officers who arrived, Kehoe said they acted properly in not entering the building before making sure that several unidentified persons encountered outside the school weren't involved in the shooting and didn't pose a threat to police or others.
"I think it's been challenging for our whole agency," Kehoe said. "Our officers who responded have been under a tremendous amount of scrutiny."
The chief also said that arriving officers were following their training by parking their cruisers some distance away from the school and advancing the rest of the way on foot.
"You drive up to the front window, you're going to be a victim," Kehoe said. "You don't want to be the first responder victim."
According to the 44-page report from Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky III, the first Newtown officer was at the school less than 3-1/2 minutes after the first 911 call was received by dispatchers, but police didn't go in for another five minutes and 47 seconds because of repeated advisories that another gunman may have been lurking outside the building.
By that time, Adam Lanza, who proved to be the sole shooter, had already killed 26 people at the school, 20 of them children, with a semi-automatic rifle and taken his own life with a single shot from the handgun he was also carrying.
"You have to have a practical understanding of a response to an active shooter situation," Kehoe said. "Officers have to balance the tactical considerations for engaging the suspect ... or more lives could be in danger."
Sedensky said in his report that local and State Policewho initially went to the school believed that a second shooter was present, and that belief affected their actions. Concerns about a second shooter persisted for hours, Sedensky said, and it wasn't until well into the following 11-month investigation that law enforcement authorities were satisfied that Lanza hadn't received any assistance from another person in planning or carrying out his attack.
Kehoe said Newtown police are awaiting receipt of the complete state police report on the Dec. 14 massacre, in order to conduct an after-action review of their response. Such reviews have become standard among law enforcement agencies involved in major incidents, and are used to help improve response and planning.
The state police report, which Sedensky used to prepare his summary, is reportedly several thousand pages long.
"It will be a review of the facts and circumstances of the entire event, and what it entails is a review of everyone's actions," Kehoe said. "Even if we got a redacted version, we should be able to do a review."
A spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice said Monday that state police are in the process of redacting personal information from the documents before making them public, and the process is expected to be completed before the first anniversary of the shooting.
State police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.
SOURCE;NEWS
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