By Keith Johnson
Wolfgang W. Halbig won’t rest until the state of Connecticut answers “16 simple questions” concerning the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting of December 14, 2012. Will those answers be forthcoming, or have they been hiding in plain sight for quite some time?
Halbig, a former school safety consultant, was launched onto the public stage last February through a compelling interview with AMERICAN FREE PRESS reporter Dave Gahary, and has since become the face of a growing movement determined to prove that the event in Newtown, Connecticut was actually an elaborate hoax.
Insisting that there are far too many anomalies to support the “official” version of events, the one-time Florida State Trooper (1974-77) has volunteered to lead an independent investigation and has thus far collected more than $18,000 in donations from hundreds of like-minded supporters from across the globe in about a month. His goal is to raise $100,000, a portion of which he promises will be used to file Freedom of Information Act requests with various state and local agencies.
Although Halbig complains that previous inquiries have been deliberately ignored by authorities, one Sandy Hook researcher, who goes by the alias C.W. Wade, insists that the answers to most of his questions can be found in the voluminous final report released by the state of Connecticut in late December 2013.
Wade, producer of the documentary video Sandy Hook: The Deadliest Minute, recently spoke with this AFP reporter about Halbig’s questions and what the available evidence really says about that tragic autumn day in that small New England town.
Though he was originally skeptical of the government’s official story on Sandy Hook, Wade told this newspaper that he soon became convinced that 20-year-old Adam Lanza was the sole perpetrator of the massacre after reviewing thousands of pages of recently-released documents and comparing the information to other data that has accumulated since December 14, 2012.
“When I started my investigation, I wanted to know how a six-foot, 113-pound man could walk into a school and slaughter 26 people in nine minutes,” Wade said. “But after analyzing all the available evidence, I discovered that Lanza was not just capable, but well prepared to carry out the attacks.”
Wade became interested in Halbig after listening to his numerous interviews and came to the conclusion that he was blatantly misrepresenting the facts.
“Based on my knowledge of the report, it was obvious that Halbig wasn’t familiar with its contents despite him claiming to have read it,” said Wade. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be asking questions that have already been answered.”
When asked to cite an example, Wade refers to question #14 on Halbig’s list, where he asks which Newtown Police officer called into dispatch to report finding “multiple weapons,” including “a rifle and a shotgun.”
According to Wade, “The report clearly identifies the officer as [Leonard] Penna. But more importantly, Halbig implies that this officer found these weapons in a classroom which, if true, would be inconsistent with other reports.”
Wade went on to say that the officer made no such discovery and was actually advising responding officers to come well-armed.
As he explains, “The officer’s transmission is transcribed in the report as: ‘Units in the pool, be advised, we should have multiple weapons, including long rifles and shotguns.’ In other words, he’s telling officers to gear up, and that’s consistent with another officer who calls in shortly thereafter to instruct responding plainclothes officers to have their raid gear on.”
When asked to provide other examples, Wade refers to question #5, where Halbig asks why paramedics and EMTs were not allowed inside the school to treat the seriously injured.
“Halbig’s premise is incorrect because medically-trained personnel were allowed on scene within the first response timeline,” said Wade.
In the report, Wade discovered that two Newtown ambulances, consisting of a paramedic and two EMTs each, were dispatched in less than 10 minutes after the initial call of shots fired was phoned in. Those personnel, who are identified by name, ultimately provided advanced life support to the two injured children and basic life support to an injured adult both at the scene and en route to the hospital. The report also identifies three medically trained Connecticut State Troopers among the first responders to arrive at the school. Two were EMTs and another was a registered nurse.
Wade went on to address question #6, where Halbig demands to know the names of those who declared people dead at the scene.
“Four people were transported to the hospital by ambulance and the rest were found dead, which the report clearly states,” he said. “Paramedic Matthew Cassevechia and two tactical paramedics made the legal presumptions of death under the direction of Dr. Pat Broderick of the Danbury Hospital and they did this by using proper SMART [Simple Medical Assessment And Rapid Treatment] protocols and after performing four separate assessments on each patient. None of this is a secret.”
On the March 30 edition of the Spingola Speaks radio program, Wade discussed each of Halbig’s 16 questions with host Deanna Spingola (who also hosts a weekly radio program on the AMERICAN FREE PRESS Radio Network) and provided the book and document numbers where the answers can be found in the final report. He’s done the same on his website, Sandy Hook Analysis, where he also provides the long-sought-after names of emergency personnel, incident commanders and civilian contractors, including the bio-hazard decontamination companies that cleaned up the blood at both crime scenes.
On April 7, AFP’s Dave Gahary moderated a lively debate between Wade and Halbig. When Halbig was confronted with Wade’s finding, he dismissed them as fiction and implored listeners to trust in his credentials and years of experience in public service.
“Halbig has now switched gears,” Wade said. “In earlier interviews he claimed to be an expert who read the report but still has questions. Now he’s abandoned the report altogether, suggesting that it’s been falsified and that people shouldn’t read it.”
Wade hopes that those seeking the truth won’t take that advice and will instead take the time to read the report and come to their own conclusions.
“I wasn’t convinced until I read the report and found that all the puzzle pieces fit,” Wade said. “We have over forty signed statements from witnesses, the four doctors who did the autopsies and emergency personnel from multiple state and local agencies. They corroborate one another. To simply dismiss their testimony is absurd.”
Other allegations Halbig has made through various interviews are addressed in a video, entitled Wolfgang Halbig: Fact Checking the Expert, where Wade uses dash-cam footage, sworn statements, radio transmissions and other available data to counter Halbig’s harsh critique of first responders, including his claim that officers stood down and parked a quarter-of-a-mile from the school.
“That’s a complete lie,” said Wade. “They had boots in the hallway of that school within six minutes of the first call,” Wade said. “Unlike Columbine, where police waited up to three hours before making entry, these officers went directly into harms way. This was a heroic effort and those involved should be commended.”
Wolfgang Does Newtown
By Keith Johnson
When Wolfgang W. Halbig descends on Newtown, Connecticut on May 5 – 7, he’s likely to face an uphill battle if he intends on winning the hearts and minds of the local community.
In recent months, the former school safety consultant has become the unofficial spokesman for those who refuse to believe in the government’s explanation of what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.
During a February 11 interview with AMERICAN FREE PRESS reporter Dave Gahary, Halbig gave his reasons why he didn’t buy the “official” story and accused his local sheriff’s department of threatening to arrest him if he didn’t stop asking questions.
Since then, the former Florida Highway Patrolman has been reaching out to likeminded supporters in hopes of raising $100,000 for an independent investigation. So far, he’s managed to collect more than $18,000 in donations and plans to apply a portion of that money to fund a “fact finding” mission that will begin in Newtown next week.
Among the items on Halbig’s itinerary is a visit to two “non-profits,” including the United Way, where he hopes to determine “who contributed” an alleged “$24 million” in donations to Sandy Hook victims and “how the funds were allocated.”
Then, on the evening of May 6, Halbig will attend a Newtown Board of Education meeting where he intends to hand-deliver a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Board members and then ask them “16 simple questions” about the Sandy Hook incident that Connecticut officials have allegedly refused to answer.
“We will also visit the Newtown Police Department to introduce myself and get them to provide us with our CT FOIA requests through our Attorney,” Halbig said on his fund raising page. “They came to my house so now I am going to their house.”
Although Halbig has had trouble attracting support in and around the close-knit New England community, he does have a significant nationwide following, some of whom suspect that the event in Sandy Hook was staged as a pre-text to more stringent gun-control measures.
In an effort to determine if Halbig’s cause has support from one of the Constitution State’s leading pro-Second Amendment groups, this AFP reporter reached out to Scott Wilson, President of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL).
When asked if he knew Halbig or had been contacted by him concerning his planned visit, Wilson replied: “No, but I’m familiar with him from interviews I’ve seen on YouTube. I don’t agree [with] what he’s doing and we’re not endorsing anything he’s got planned for Newtown.”
Though Wilson agrees that gun grabbers have used Sandy Hook as an excuse for advancing stricter gun-control measures, he says that his organization does not operate under the illusion that it was a hoax or pre-planned conspiracy.
“We don’t try to pretend that this shooting never occurred and that no one was killed,” Wilson said. “I personally know a first responder who was part of the relief effort. We also have members who—if not personally affected by the tragedy—know someone who was.”
Though some CCDL members prefer to remain anonymous, Wilson said others are outspoken, including Newtown resident Bill Stevens.
“My fifth grade daughter was in lockdown on December 14th 2012,” Stevens told a committee of Connecticut legislators early last year. “Unfortunately, her classmate’s little sister was murdered in Sandy Hook that day when lockdown and 9-1-1 weren’t enough to protect her from an evil person—not protect her from an assault rifle or some type of inanimate object—but from an evil person.”
Stevens, accompanied by his daughter, recently attended a CCDL-sponsored gun-rights rally at the State Capitol and minced no words in identifying who he held responsible for the Sandy Hook massacre.
“It wasn’t the AR-15 that killed 26 innocent people in my town,” Stevens said in opposition to recently passed gun-control measures. “It was a mentally-ill shooter who pulled the trigger and this law does nothing to address that.”
Wilson is of the same opinion but also faults Connecticut officials for inspiring conspiracy theories by “keeping the investigation under wraps for as long as they did.”
Though Wilson did not question Halbig’s motives, he did express concern that his visit might be seized upon by news outlets to cast all gun owners in a negative light.
“We’ve dealt with these wackos in the past,” Wilson said. “At the end of the day, there’s no shortage of people who will exploit a tragedy for whatever reason.”
Keith Johnson in an investigative journalist and creator of the Revolt of the Plebs.
