Large Fierce Mammal

Hard on the heels of my previous article, Mrs. LFM has turned up a press release issued yesterday by the Connecticut State Police under the signature of Lt. J. Paul Vance. Its contents are quoted below in their entirety in case of later amendments, edits, or complete removal of, the original document:

** UPDATE **

STATE POLICE IDENTIFY WEAPONS USED IN SANDY HOOK INVESTIGATION;
INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

In previous press conferences, the Connecticut State Police clearly identified all of the weapons seized from the crime scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

To eliminate any confusion or misinformation, we will again describe and identify the weapons seized at the school crime scene.

Seized inside the school:

#1. Bushmaster .223 caliber– model XM15-E2S rifle with high capacity 30 round clips

#2. Glock 10 mm handgun

#3. Sig-Sauer P226   9mm handgun

Seized from suspect’s car in parking lot:

#4. Izhmash Canta-12   12 gauge Shotgun    (seized from car in parking lot)

This case remains under investigation.

Lt. J. Paul Vance

While I applaud this effort to set the record straight, it still begs the question of whither the wayward AR15? Some say it was in the school, others that it was in the trunk, and still others that it wasn’t there at all. If, in fact, “In previous press conferences, the Connecticut State Police clearly identified all of the weapons seized from the crime scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” where is the confusion coming from? If multiple “official” sources are providing the media with conflicting details about something as simple and fundamental as the types of firearms used by the perpetrator to fire his lethal shots, this one represents simply the latest version of the truth. Worst of all, the police investigation seems to be devolving into an effort to put an AR15 rifle at the scene of the crime, and brand it a co-conspirator. I believe the issue in question here is much bigger than that because I’ve been privileged to know and work with a lot of cops, and the ones I know aren’t predisposed to be this questionable.

Whoever actually wrote this press release raised a red flag in me when I read the reference to, “… high capacity 30 round clips.” This is a politically inflammatory assemblage of words routinely spoken by politicians, not by people with an understanding of firearms, and it bothers me that it needed to be described that way by a serving police officer who should know how important it is to, “Stick to the facts Ma’am. Just the facts.”

Until the Truth is out, I am inclined to view this as propaganda. Even if it’s just a white lie on  agency letterhead intended purely to fix embarrassing gob flapping on the part of people who should have kept their mouths shut and have since been chastised, it comes in the wake of enough conflicting information from “official” sources to render it likewise suspect. It might have helped if survivors of the event had been interviewed by the media immediately afterward, but doing that now might regrettably leave the testimony open to question out of concern over coaching aimed at keeping it in line with the official version of events. This is sad in the extreme because it speaks more to trust lost than to public safety as I know the meaning of the term.