Nearly one month after the Newtown, Conn., shooting, the official police report on the crime scenes is nearing completion, and a police spokesman tells the Daily Beast's Diane Dimond that there will be some shocking, eye-opening conclusions that counter much of the media' faulty initial reporting.
One such piece of misinformation was the early, egregious rumor that the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza, was a survivalist or "doomsday prepper," a paranoid hoarder obsessed with what she considered the imminent collapse of society. In a January 7 post at the Daily Beast website, Dimond quoted a Lt. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police debunking that notion and saying a forthcoming police report will help to dispel urban legends that have crystallized in the public imagination:
Question: Did Adam spend his time sequestered in two rooms in the basement? “No, No,” Vance said, shaking his head. “That’s just not right.”
Question: Did he play violent video games, as has also been reported? Vance “can’t say anything yet.” The forensic computer team continues to try to reconstruct Adam’s Internet footprint for clues to his thinking.
Question: Was Nancy a survivalist bent on stockpiling food and guns in preparation for economic collapse, as some media have alleged? To that, Vance scrunched up his face dismissively, shook his head, and in an exasperated tone said, “I don’t even know where that came from.”
(The idea that Nancy might be a “doomsday prepper” was first mentioned by Marsha Lanza, who lives in Crystal Lake, Ill., and admits she hadn’t seen Nancy or Adam for years.)
Vance "cautioned against taking too much of what has been reported as fact" and cryptically told Dimond, [empasis mine] "I think you’ll be surprised to learn the truth about that once the final police report is released.”
It shall prove incredibly interesting, to say the least, what the final police report concludes and equally interesting what the liberal media choose to highlight from that report. Will the media work diligently to correct the public's misperceptions which have been fueled by initial, faulty reporting?
Will Nancy Lanza finally be treated by the media as the victim that she was rather than ignored or demonized?
As David Zurawaik of the Baltimore Sun wrote on December 14th, “the further we fall from the core values of journalism to inform and clarify…[the more] we add to the confusion and cacophony in these deeply troubled times.”
When the police report is issued, the media have a chance to dispel confusion and silence the cacophony by doing full reports that relay the facts, no matter how those facts undercut the popular narratives that have thus far served as helpful talking points for the liberal gun control lobby.
