An Ohio security firm has stirred outrage by using a crime-scene photo from the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in a business pitch emailed to school boards in Connecticut,
reports The Hartford Courant.
A caption under the publicly released forensic photo of the school entry, riddled with bullets by shooter Adam Lanza read, "securing glass with shatter resistant window film will help keep out unwanted intruders," a suggestion by the company, Commercial Window Shield of Toledo, that its shatter-resistant film could have stopped the gunman.
The email was sent to Board of Education officials throughout the state, including in Newtown, where shooter Lanza massacred 20 children and six adults.
Reaction was swift.
"They should be ashamed of themselves," said Essex Board of Education Chairman Lon Seidman. "We get a lot of spam e-mails and companies pitching their security products but this one stood out because the first thing you see is a crime scene photo. To somehow insinuate that the product would have somehow prevented what happened was just woefully inappropriate.
"If this is how they are marketing themselves, then I'd think towns in Connecticut wouldn't want to hire them,'' Seidman added.
Monroe First Selectmen Steve Vavrek called the email "one of the most insensitive, classless advertisements I have ever seen."
Vavrek asked the company to apologize to people in Newtown and "retract the ad as a courtesy to all who are still living through this senseless tragedy, do not try to profit off of it."
Students from the Sandy Hook Elementary School have been attending school in Monroe since last January. Sandy Hook Elementary
has been torn down and will be replaced by a new building on the same site.
Commercial Window Shield spokeswoman Sarah Staley replied in an email, that "I did not intend for the email to come across in the way that it did. I hope you are able to accept my apology, as our intention was not to cause you or the people of Newtown any further pain or anguish. I am literally sick over this."
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