Among other things, the 114-page report says that an otherwise supportive school system unwittingly helped to “accommodate and appease” Lanza, at the wishes of his mother. Those accommodations included “lack of attention to social-emotional support, failure to provide related services,” and an agreement to allow Lanza to take independent studies out of the classroom.

Lanza, 20, shot and killed his mother, Nancy, before traveling to Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, 2012.

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However, the report notes: “No direct line of causation can be drawn from these to the horrific mass murder at Sandy Hook.” A team of lawyers, social workers, psychiatrists and educators compiled the report, which is dedicated to Lanza’s victims.

“AL’s parents (and the school) appeared to conceptualize him as intellectually gifted, and much of AL’s high school experience catered to his curricular needs,” the report reads, noting that “in actuality, psychological testing performed by the school district in high school indicated AL’s cognitive abilities were average.”

(Lanza is mentioned by name once, and then referred to as “AL” throughout the rest of the report.)

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The authors single out the recommendations from an evaluation at the Yale Child Study Center when Lanza was 14. Those recommendations warned against accommodation-based strategies. “Yale’s recommendations for extensive special education supports, ongoing expert consultation, and rigorous therapeutic supports embedded into AL’s daily life went largely unheeded,” the report says.

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Other key findings in the report include:

Adam Lanza’s communication in the last years of his life “while suggesting depression and, at times, suicidal ideation , does not suggest the presence of psychosis (loss of contact with reality).”

Lanza “retained access to numerous firearms” and ammunition magazines as his mental health conspicuously deteriorated. “Assault weapons are the single most common denominator in mass shootings in the United States and as such, their ready availability must be considered a critical public

health issue,” the report says.

“It is not clear that any measures were taken to curtail his access to guns,” even when Lanza’s mother noted that her son seemed “despondent” and refused to leave the house.

Lanza “was anorexic” at the time he died. At 6 feet tall, he weighed just 112 pounds.

While the document provides some insight into the last years of Lanza’s life and into the health system that treated him, the authors are clear to make the distinction between their analysis and a claim of causality. “While authors describe the predisposing factors and compounding stresses in AL’s life, authors do not conclude that they add up to an inevitable arc leading to mass murder,” they write.

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Like previous investigations into the shooting, this one underlines that there may never be an answer for why Newtown happened: “There is no way to adequately explain why AL was obsessed with mass shootings and how or why he came to act on this obsession. In the end, only he, and he alone, bears responsibility for this monstrous act.”

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