Connecticut Police yet to Release Sandy Hook Response Report

April 27—Following nearly every mass shooting in the U.S., the response of law enforcement and medical personnel is examined, a critical exercise experts say is not intended to place blame but to identify areas that can be improved and ways lives can be saved.

A so-called "after-action report" was issued less than two years after the Boston Marathon bombing and identified problems with officers' use of weapons during a related shootout in Watertown, Mass. The report after the Virginia Tech shootings took 17 months and found that the campus was not widely alerted to a gunman's presence. After a shooting at Northern Illinois University, investigators took 18 months and issued a report that helped establish a notification system for staff and students.

Now, 28 months since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, Connecticut state police have yet to issue an after-action report analyzing law enforcement response. Newtown police have not done an internal review of their response to the school either—relying on a nine-page report done by a police chief's association.

The lack of an examination of the response to one of the worst school shootings in the country's history came as a surprise to the project manager for a Virginia company that has completed several after-action reports beginning with Columbine. Philip Schaenman said a review should have been done, and by an independent party.

"I was surprised that Connecticut did not do a third-party review of [the Sandy Hook] shooting," said Schaenman, a project manager for police operations at TriData, a division of the Systems Planning Corporation. Schaenman has led the company's review of law enforcement response after the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shootings and the Virginia Tech shootings, among others.

"It is very difficult to do a candid review internally. Any report would need to have credibility and not just be a whitewash that says everybody did a great job," he said.

State police began an examination of the response to Sandy Hook in February 2013, when troopers who responded to the school were interviewed by then-Master Sgt. John Murray, numerous sources close to the situation have told The Courant.

The Courant has requested the report a number of times since then, but has been told it is not complete. Murray has since been promoted to lieutenant; it is unclear if he is still assigned to complete the report.

"After-Action Reports take a considerable amount of time," Sgt. Shane Hassett said in a written statement this week. "We continue to work on the State Police Sandy Hook after-action report and will make it available when it is completed."

Newtown police did not perform their own examination of their response, said Chief Michael Kehoe. The department relied on the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association to review its response to the shooting, in which 20 first-graders and six adults were killed. Four police chiefs from across the state conducted a review and released a report about a year after the Dec. 14, 2012, shootings.

That nine-page report concluded that officers responded quickly to the school and that the "Newtown Police Department navigated the inevitable chaos created in the first few minutes of such a call, managed to piece together what was occurring, but were unable to intervene before the shooter took his own life.'

Unlike other after-action reports, the chiefs association report did not make any recommendations on how to improve the department's response.

Earlier this month, officials in Massachusetts released the after-action review of the Boston Marathon bombing—a much more complicated investigation than Sandy Hook, involving a manhunt and a shootout—which took place four months after the Newtown school shooting.

That 130-page report pointed out some problem areas, such as a lack of "weapons discipline" during the shootout in Watertown with the two suspects. It also highlighted things that went well, including the quick treatment of all those injured by the homemade bombs detonated near the marathon finish line in April 2013.

Kehoe said he has no information about the state police review of Sandy Hook.

"We are relying on the police chief's association report," Kehoe said. "I am not aware of one done by state police and they did not interview Newtown officers, other than for the statements taken during the investigation."

The police chiefs' Newtown report is far less detailed than most. An after-action report on the Naval Shipyard shooting in Washington, D.C., which occurred nine months after Sandy Hook, is 44 pages.

The report on the Aurora movie theater shootings is 188 pages and made 88 recommendations. It was completed a little more than two years after the July 2012 shootings, despite the fact that the shooter in that case went to trial and the judge issued a gag order barring the release of any records while it was pending. Schaenman was the project manager of the Aurora report.

While the Aurora report praised the rapid response of police, it also raised questions about the lack of communication between police officers and fire department personnel, which could have comprised the treatment of some of the victims.

Police in that case ended up driving injured people to the hospital in their cars. The same thing occurred at Sandy Hook, where two victims were driven to the hospital in state police cars.

Schaenman said an independent report will always raise issues.

"In every case there are things that officers did well, but also there are things than can be improved, and it is very hard sometimes for police to criticize themselves or another police department," he said. "A big issue nationally is what role does state and local police play in responding to these incidents? Who coordinates the scene and who takes command of the investigation?"

There were issues at Sandy Hook that could be reviewed.

Sources have said many state police radios did not work inside the school, making it difficult for officers to communicate, a potentially deadly situation with so many officers searching from different areas looking for the shooter.

At one point, an officer had to go outside the school and use a cellphone to call headquarters and relay the gravity of the situation.

There also were questions about the 911 calls going to the regional dispatch center in Litchfield rather than to the closest state police barracks in Southbury, and whether that affected the response times of troopers who were unfamiliar with the Newtown area.

Aurora, Colo., officials paid more than $250,000 to have TriData do an after-action review. TriData also did after-action shooting reports following the Columbine school shooting in 1999 and the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007.

In both of those cases, TriData made recommendations that have been adopted by police agencies across the country. For example, in Columbine, police officers waited for a SWAT team to arrive before trying to enter the school. Police officers are now trained to enter a building immediately, even if it means bypassing injured people, to find and disable a shooter.

At Virginia Tech, officials were criticized for not notifying the campus about the shooting quickly enough. Now, nearly every school has an emergency text alert system to warn students and faculty to shelter in place.

Schaenman said there are a number of reasons to do an independent after-action report: the agencies directly involved get an unbiased review of their response; other law enforcement agencies around the country study the reviews to determine what best practices to adopt; and the institution where shootings occur, whether it is a school or a business, learns security measures and how to react to an active shooter.

"The agencies involved as well as law enforcement agencies all over the country can learn what they can do better the next time there is a mass shooting," Schaenman said. "Sooner or later, there always is a next time."

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