An employee from a window shield company sent an email to Connecticut education officials using a picture of shattered glass in Sandy Hook Elementary School after the 2012 shooting to promote its product, the Hartford Courant reported Thursday.
The email from Commercial Window Shield titled “Conn. Educators, towns move to secure school building glass,” stated that “securing glass with shatter resistant window film will help keep out unwanted intruders.” The film holds glass in place when it breaks.
All Board of Education chairmen in the state received the email and many expressed outrage.
“They should be ashamed of themselves,” Essex Board of Education Chairman Lon Seidman said. “To somehow insinuate that the product would have somehow prevented what happened was just woefully inappropriate.”
Newtown First Selectwoman Pat Llodra contacted the company for an apology, and Sarah Staley, the Commercial Window Shield employee who sent the initial email sent an apology.
“I did not intend for the e-mail to come across in the way that it did,” Staley wrote. “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.”
According to Seidman, Connecticut schools are working on their budgets for increased security and will likely not be considering Commercial Window Shield.
“If this is how they are marketing themselves, then I’d think towns in Connecticut wouldn’t want to hire them,” he said.
Contacted for further comment by TPM on Thursday, an employee at Commercial Window Shield said the company does have a statement about the email at this time.
Image via Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice November 2013 report
