Newtown ordered to pay long-term disability to officer who hasn't worked since school shooting

A Connecticut state board has ruled that Newtown must pay long-term disability to a police officer who developed anxiety and depression after responding to the 2012 shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Thirty-eight-year-old Thomas Bean has been out on disability with post-traumatic stress disorder and hasn't worked since the massacre, which left 20 first-graders and six educators dead.

The Hartford Courant (http://cour.at/1cQ7ujx ) reports the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration ruled the police contract requires the town to pay Bean half his salary until retirement, an amount that will total more than $380,000. Newtown's insurance company is paying 50 percent of his salary through June.

Newtown's police chief had recommended firing Bean when he could not return to work but later withdrew the proposal.