By Victor Thorn —
When serious investigative journalists confront a particular case, it’s imperative that they rely on critical thinking and logic rather than emotionalism and blind acceptance. With this extremely simple premise in mind, when government officials and the mainstream media issue pronouncements, all responsibility lies with them to prove these claims. This burden, beyond any reasonable doubt, should be even more stringently demanded in light of the fact that criminal elements within the government have conspired with their compliant lapdog media cohorts thousands of times in the past when spinning bold-faced lies regarding the JFK assassination, USS Liberty assault, OKC bombing, 9-11, etc.
Throughout its long history, both The Spotlight and AMERICAN FREE PRESS have exposed government deception while maintaining a motto, “The media is the enemy.” Framed in this context, neither Newtown, Connecticut officials nor the press have provided concrete, verifiable physical evidence proving that a lone-nut gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, murdered 26 individuals at the Sandy Hook Elementary School (SHES) on the morning of December 14, 2012. Until they do so, in addition to correcting dozens of glaring anomalies and outright lies, those of us in the alternative press should continue to fulfill our role as watchdogs.
Keeping in line with this sentiment, on April 14, this reporter interviewed political researcher Ed Whitney, who has authored books such as The Controllers: Secret Rulers of the World and 9-11: What Really Happened. During this conversation, Whitney stated, “Maybe I’m too naïve, but I believe children and school administrators were killed at Sandy Hook.” When asked what he based this determination on, Whitney replied, “A confidential informant assured me that it occurred.” Following up on this assertion, this reporter next inquired, “Is there physically verifiable evidence available to the public which proves what your informant told you?” Whitney answered, “Not that I’m aware of.”
On April 13, AFP also contacted Verne Fuerst, Whitney’s co-host on a Farmington, Ct.-based cable access TV show named Our World in Conflict. AFP similarly wondered what physical proof existed to corroborate the government and media’s version of events at SHES, to which Fuerst responded, “Nothing, really. How much can we believe of what these people say when it can’t be corroborated? There’s no helicopter footage of children being mass evacuated, or dead bodies being wheeled out of the school. This whole thing is like a big fairy tale.”
Fuerst, who along with Whitney produced two hour-long television reports on Sandy Hook, further reiterated his suspicions to AFP. “There are so many inconsistencies in the government and media’s accounts that very little can be supported. Plus, all their information is tightly controlled and the propaganda’s so nasty. It’s a mirage. That’s what we’re getting here.”
Whitney shared Fuerst’s apprehensions about Sandy Hook. He related to AFP, “I’m the kind of person who relies heavily on factual information. That’s why all the unusual circumstances lead me to believe it was a false flag operation set-up by the gun control crowd.”
Providing specific details, Whitney asserted, “Why were ambulances, first responders and fire trucks forced to park at a firehouse 500 yards away from SHES? Moreover, why were paramedics refused entrance? If my kids had been shot, I’d want paramedics to go in right away and potentially save them. Time is of the essence.” Worse, aerial footage showed idling ambulances blocked-in by cars at the firehouse, something that would never transpire under typical emergency protocol procedures.
In a six-page written statement, Whitney expressed other misgivings. “Presumably, plenty of blood would have been shed in the school, but when asked who cleaned it up, the Board of Education declined to answer.” Whitney added, “Trauma helicopters were not sent to Sandy Hook. LifeStar, the medical helicopter service at Danbury Hospital Trauma Center, was never called.”
Because of space limitations, only two other glaring disparities can be illustrated. First, Pastor Jim Solomon announced to ABC News that a six-year-old girl “ran out of the school covered in blood from head-to-toe.” In an age where 99% of the populace carries camera-equipped cell phones, why has no one seen such a dramatic photo? Surely, whoever snapped this picture would receive a Pulitzer Prize. Where is this six-year-old survivor who could provide a wealth of firsthand information?
Lastly, as confirmation of media duplicity, CNN’s Anderson Cooper deliberately tried to deceive viewers by airing video footage of seven police officers charging across a parking lot toward a school. He passed off these visuals as occurring at SHES, when in actuality they were filmed 1.5 miles away at St. Rose of Lima School during an “active shooter drill.” Cooper broadcast this falsehood not only once in the afternoon, but also again hours later when CNN would have had plenty of time to fact-check their data.
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Seeing is Believing
Continuing the theme of physical evidence, why do government officials refuse to release video footage of Adam Lanza supposedly bursting into SHES? According to news reports, in 2012 an entire visual monitoring system had been installed at the school with, one would assume, some type of recording apparatus. Independent researchers aren’t requesting photos of children or blood-soaked bodies. No, they’re merely requesting a brief segment showing Lanza barreling through SHES’s front doors. When the Pentagon refused to release confiscated CCTV tapes after 9-11, truthseekers screamed foul. If for no other reason than consistency, this same outrage should be directed at those associated with the suppression of material at Sandy Hook.
On April 13, AFP phoned Wolfgang Halbig, a school safety consultant and former Florida state trooper who has vociferously investigated this matter. AFP offered the following scenario. “What would happen if government officials released evidence of Adam Lanza entering SHES armed with guns and ammunition?” Halbig wasted no time. “We’d be gone. It’d be a done deal. The reason they’re not releasing any footage is because it never existed. Better yet, if their security system failed, shouldn’t they be forced to explain how it did so? That way, such tragedies would never happen at other schools.”
Fuerst concurred. “They won’t present any video footage because they don’t have any.” He next addressed a related topic. “We’re told that Adam Lanza suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, which causes a loss of motor control. How is a frail 20-year-old kid supposed to carry into that school multiple weapons and 400 rounds of ammo, and then handle sophisticated weaponry, reload, and kill 26 people with expert marksmanship when there’s no evidence that he ever trained at a gun range? I don’t think a kid who’s that sick is capable of it.”
Whitney saw eye-to-eye with Fuerst on this point. “Lanza wasn’t in the best of health or physically up to par because of his Asperger’s. Due to his limited strength and agility, in my opinion it’s a stretch that he could kill 26 people in such a short amount of time. On top of that, we’re led to believe he was a shut-in. What would inspire Lanza to go from one extreme to another and shoot-up a school? It seems inconsistent for someone that’s home-bound.”
The scriptwriters for this production must have understood these disparities, so they attempted to establish a motive via grotesque lies. First, WUSA’s Andrea McCarrey reported on Sarah Cox, a “school nurse of 15 years,” who reportedly said that Adam Lanza’s mother Nancy had been a kindergarten teacher at SHES. Considering that only two dozen teachers worked there, it’s inconceivable that a veteran nurse would make such a mistake. School board member Lillian Bittman later shot down this chicanery by saying, “No one heard of her [Nancy Lanza]. Teachers don’t know her.”
Next, in another attempt to establish motive, NBC correspondent Pete Williams reported on December 15, 2012 that Adam Lanza got into an altercation with school officials in the SHES parking lot one day before the purported shooting. Because of this fight, he sought revenge. However, Lt. Paul Vance contradicted Williams by revealing that this incident never occurred.
Then there’s the matter of Lanza himself. According to the spoon-fed narrative, people rarely, if ever, saw Lanza because he was a reclusive loner that did nothing but play video games on his computer. Yet, Lanza had established absolutely no online footprint: no email address, Facebook account, social media interactions, etc. It’s literally impossible for an addicted computer geek to not leave a trace in cyberspace. But that’s what we’re encouraged to accept about Lanza.
On December 18, 2012, CNN’s Deborah Feyerick confessed, “This is a kid [Lanza] who just fell off the grid about three years ago. There are no records of what he’s been doing since 2009.” Oddly, entire books have been written about every other mass murderer’s life history, but Lanza is more elusive than a wisp of smoke.
Smoking Gun
Quite possibly the biggest smoking gun of all that utterly undermines the official timeline can be found in the analysis of AFP reporter Pete Papaherakles. Concluding that many of the events seen on TV were probably filmed at earlier dates, Papaherakles debunked one particular aspect of the smokescreen.
Lanza supposedly began his rampage at 9:35:53 a.m., yet only three minutes and 13 seconds later, at 9:39:06 a.m., an ABC News helicopter already hovered above SHES. At that time it showed police officers chasing two “shadows” running behind SHES into the woods. As they did so, they passed a shed with an open door.
This precise time can be verified by police scanner dispatch recordings which set the time at 9:39 a.m. Next, helicopter cameramen filmed six SWAT [Special Weapons And Tactics] team members dressed in military gear searching the SHES grounds for other gunmen. While doing so, they used a crowbar to bust off the lock and pry open the door of this very same shed.
Here’s the catch: a December 15, 2012, UK Daily Mail article stated that this SWAT team didn’t arrive at SHES until 9:45 a.m. So, at a minimum, six minutes earlier at 9:39 the shed door had been open, but at 9:45 (or thereafter) the shed door was inexplicably locked back shut again. While searching for a homicidal lunatic, obviously nobody would take the time to relock a shed. A flagrant error in the timeline of events had reared its ugly head.
Papaherakles’ prowess for uncovering details also extended to the lack of evidence showing a mass evacuation of 500-plus children from SHES. As stated, a WABC helicopter allegedly began recording over SHES at 9:39 a.m., four minutes after Lanza supposedly began his onslaught. But after inspecting footage from three different police cars with dash-cams pointed in every direction of the SHES parking lot, Papaherakles located no evidence of any fleeing children. Thus, neither the WABC helicopter nor three police dash-cams depicted any type of evacuation whatsoever, nor did they corroborate the photo professed to be taken at 10:09 a.m. by Shannon Hicks, associate editor of The Newtown Bee, in which a line of children were purportedly escaping from SHES. Police dash-cam No. 2 was pointed directly at the parking lot location where the Hicks photo was purportedly taken, but it never revealed one frame of this event ever occurring.
Below is an email received from Papaherakles on these anomalies.
Check this out. As far as I know, no one has yet discovered this blatant anomaly in the official time sequence of the Sandy Hook Elementary School events. It proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the whole thing was fabricated. Anyone willing to spend 15 minutes going over what I have put together can have 100% certainty that the whole thing was a complete and utter hoax.
The video below includes the official police scanner audio from the morning of Dec. 14. You only need to watch the first minute or two of this video.
The whole event started at 9:35 AM. That’s when Lanza broke into the school and started shooting up children.
Sandy Hook Police Audio Timeline “Actual Scanner Recording”
The police and medical scanners from that morning have the actual audio footage as the event was unfolding.
The first officers’ report about the shootings was received at 9:35:51 AM when the first police cars arrived there.
At 9:36:34 AM the first officer reported that he discovered broken glass at front entrance of school.
At 9:37:14 AM there are reports about more shots being heard.
At 9:38:15 AM the lead officer tells the other police that the shooting has stopped and that the school is in lockdown.
At 9:39:06 AM there are reports of two “shadows” running behind the school.
At this point we also have the news helicopter on the scene which shows the “second shooter” chased in the woods behind the school. Actually there were two people. The copter video correlates with what is being heard on the police scanner.
Notice at this point (1:08) that at the back of the school there is a shed with an open door shown on the video. This next video shows how that door was opened.
If you go to the 00:46 second mark in the video you see six men dressed in military uniforms and a policewoman with a police dog. One of the soldiers uses a crow bar to force the door open while the others go inside to inspect. You only need to watch till the 1:12 mark.
Sandy Hook Rehearsal Video Leaked
You have to wonder about the timeline of this whole “live event.” The call to the police was made on 9:35:53. By 9:36:34, only 41 seconds later, the police were at the front door of the school. That’s pretty quick!
By 9:39:06, only 3:13 minutes later we actually have the ABC news helicopter on the scene filming the suspects chased into the woods. This is phenomenal! How did they get there so quickly?
But what is really mind-blowing is that the news helicopter was there even earlier, because they were filming the military crew forcing the shed door open. The military crew was already gone by the time the chase in the woods commenced. How is that possible?
If you take into account the time involved to set up and film the shed entry sequence, the news helicopter would have to have been there at least 3 minutes earlier, which means they got there before Lanza even broke into the school!
Notice also the lack of urgency in the military crew forcing the shed door open. The soldier with the crow bar is only wearing a T-shirt. At 8:00 AM that morning, the temperature in Sandy Hook was 21 degrees. By 10:00 AM it was still only 34 degrees.
Newtown CT Hourly Weather Data For December 14 2012
The temperature issue is also evident in the rest of the second 4 minute video where everyone can be seen dressed too lightly for such a cold day. But that’s another issue. The main purpose of this report was to prove that the official timeline is impossible.
The chase in the woods is also revealing as there was not only one suspect chased down by the police, but several. Watching up to the 4 minute mark of the official scanner video reveals that the police actually arrested 3 people in the woods chase. Only one was ever reported. Joe Manfredonia, who allegedly was a parent going to the school to help make “gingerbread houses.” But all that was smoke and mirrors anyway since the whole thing was a HOAX.
Was SHES Even a Functional School?
Coinciding with an April 24 meeting to be held before the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission in Hartford, Wolfgang Halbig has issued subpoenas to six SHES individuals: the head custodian, principal, ombudsman, superintendent, school board chairman, and director of facilities. Also subpoenaed is the Newtown police chief, as well as Ct. state trooper radio transmission tapes.
Halbig seeks this information in order to verify whether SHES was even operational on December 14, 2012. Halbig stressed to AFP on April 13, “This facility was a deplorable toxic waste dump, not a functioning school for 500 children. If parents walked to its front entrance, they’d find it full of mold and decaying material. Inside, it was equally as filthy with water-damaged ceiling tiles and rotting wooden doors. On top of that, there existed lead paint, asbestos and PCBs, even though ABC News described SHES as a ‘vanguard and pristine school.’ The parking lot and roof were also in a deteriorated condition.”
On April 14, independent researcher Coral Haines confirmed this description to AFP. “I’ve been inside my children’s elementary school hundreds of times, and it has always been clean and neat. There is no way that Sandy Hook was operational. If you inspect photographs taken inside that building, it’s packed full of rubbish, and the classrooms are stacked almost to the ceiling with junk. The ceiling tiles were all discolored and falling down, while its outside doors and walls were covered with mold and mildew. My kid’s school is about the same age as Sandy Hook, but I’ve never seen anything like SHES compared to when I walk my dog past our school every day. The only area of Sandy Hook Elementary School that looked normal was the lobby, and I’m sure that was staged for this event [the alleged shooting]. I’m almost entirely convinced that this school had been shut down for years and was being used as storage.”
Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and author of over 50 books.
It is the Sandy Hook emergency response at question. For reasons not yet explained (and not in need of explanation as far as pointing out what went wrong), every single NPD officer on scene failed his obligation to notify dispatch that there were not two, but 27 people down. By the time Bob Nute at dispatch found out second-hand from an EMT that this was a Mass Casualty Incident, patients had been bleeding for 30 minutes; by the time his frantically-summoned regional ambulances had arrived, they had been bleeding for 60 minutes. The Golden Hour, as it is referred to in EMS circles, was gone.
With Mike Piper out of AFP, the Sandy Hook sect can now take over the paper?
Debunking the Latest Sandy Hook Hoax Conspiracy Theories
Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theorists Continue Getting it Wrong
Hands down. No debate.
Dennis, what do you consider to be proof? Pictures of the dead bodies?
It’s not just court cases that require burden of proof. If I were to tell you that I went to the moon and the planet Mars and back to earth in 10 hours, would you accept my word? Certainly not. I would have to provide you with evidence. It seems that once the government makes an official statement you automatically accept their word on it. The official Sandy Hook government story has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. All I am asking is for the government to provide the evidence that it happened the way they said it did.
These are just some of the anomalies that one must overlook to believe this really happened. I watched all morning (until lunch) as this developed (news copters). I never did see any little kids popping out as expected anywhere around the school. There was a lot of commotion down around the fire station though.
I don’t know what really happened. I do know that it didn’t happen as the gov’t would have you believe. Too many problems w/the story. One or two inconsistencies? OK. A hundred? No way.
It’s not my word vs. Wolfgang’s word; it’s Wolfgang’s word vs. the word of the professionals who spent a year compiling their report. Being a school safety inspector doesn’t qualify one to dismiss such a comprehensive report based on a few YouTube videos.
Jolly Roger:
You must be referring to that “FBI report” that inspired an idiotic (and quickly deleted) tweet by Chipper Jones. I’m sure you’re very busy, but please see if you can find the time to dig up a link for us.
Dennis:
Nobody is on trial so there is no “burden of proof.” I would expect, however, that a person seeking any amount of journalistic credibility would take the time to provide links, sources, etc. in his attempt to “debunk” the official report of a crime of this magnitude. Simply referencing other is insufficient.
Marcus:
Your comparison is tasteless. We’re not talking about elusive insurgents who are returning fire. We’re talking about 5/6 year old children cowering in fear at point blank range. The idea that you would give this loser a score or accuracy rating is disgusting.
I’m just saying, there are too many inconsistencies and I don’t believe anything our government says. It’s obvious they are continually covering up one scandal or another. I am only wondering how that many people could be involved in this and it not get leaked out. I’m quite sure there are webs on top of webs of lies, just like Benghazi.
You’re right on!
Who cares if no one from the inside is a whistle blower? So far the government has provided no evidence, none whatsoever. All we have is the government’s word that it happened.
The burden of proof isn’t on the author of this article to prove that Sandy Hook was a hoax. The burden of proof lies with the government that it happened the way they told us it did. So far they have not provided any evidence. All we have is their word on it.
According to what I saw, there was an AR15 in the trunk of the car that was supposedly Lanza’s.
According to what I’ve heard, all the reports are redacted, and this incident is categorized under national security.
I’d like to see some of this info for myself.
I don’t have the link, but you’ll find it if you search for the FBI report.
This article does, however, raise important questions about AFP’s “evolving” coverage of Sandy Hook. As I recall, it started out neutral on the question of conspiracy but quickly moved to an almost rabid defense of the official narrative or at least one Allan would approve of. Grotesque attacks were made by Michael Collins Piper and others against respected researchers attempting to maintain a dialogue on the valid questions surrounding this incident. And now AFP seems to have swung almost the other direction.
I would like to demand, as a subscriber, that AFP clarify its position on this subject as it has changed over time and to explain why such changes occurred.
Please cite a source for your claim that an ABC news helicopter was above SHES at 9:39 am on 12/14/12. The only “source” you give for the “smoking gun” portion of this blog is an email received from someone who also writes for this blog.
Sandy Hook FAIL: Team McDonnell
Adam was raped by a local, convicted pedophile Catholic priest, Fr. John Castaldo, when Adam was 6-years-old, and was taking revenge against other 6-year-olds.
WHY Adam Lanza killed children in Sandy Hook – A theory & motive
It can’t be proven yet, but it is the best explanation yet for why Adam would want to take revenge against the parents of other 6-year-olds, since those parents didn’t help him since he was raped.
And this was written before news came out that Adam wrote a story called “Lovebound” about a 10-year-old boy and a 30-year-old man, which would only be written by a child that had been sexually abused by an older man.