Fact Checking “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”, Chapter Three

“Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”
Chapter Three
By: James Fetzer

This chapter is simply a rehash of Wolfgang Halbig’s embarrassing presentation to the Connecticut Freedom of Information Committee during his first FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) hearing, which CW Wade of Sandy Hook Facts summarized thusly:

Wolfgang Halbig’s spent about $20,000 raised through his charity, Sandy Hook Justice, for two days worth of hearings. He was awarded no documents and the majority of his complaints where dismissed in their entirety.  It should also be noted that the documents Halbig obtained at a cost of  about $20,000, Sandy Hook Facts obtained for under $100.

Ouch.

“Among our most important discoveries has been the FEMA manual for the Sandy Hook event (Appendix A), which specifies that a rehearsal will be conducted on December 13, 2012, with the event going ‘LIVE’ on the 14th, which explains why Wolf has been unable to obtain information about the Port-A-Potties, which on its face seems very obscure, but where releasing the documents he has requested would reveal that they were delivered on the 13th, which blows the cover for the whole event.” pgs. 39-40

The “FEMA manual” is an obvious and amateurish forgery, as exposed here and here. That anyone ever took it seriously is almost unbelievable, even taking into consideration the extreme gullibility of your average Sandy Hook denier.

If anyone really wants to know when the toilets were delivered, all they would need to do is consult the police dashcam videos from that morning and they can see them being put into place for themselves:

Note the time and date.

Furthermore, if the toilets had been delivered the day before, as is claimed, then they would be seen in the following early aerial photo of the school’s parking lot:

No portable toilets in sight. But they are visible in other aerial photos taken later that day:

This is proof that the toilets were not delivered prior to the shooting, and all Halbig needed to do to realize this was look at a couple of photographs and use his head.

“One of Wolf’s successes has been to gain access to dozens and dozens of photographs taken of the school the day after the alleged shooting.” pg. 40

Yes, he “gained access” by downloading the crime scene photographs that were made publicly available on a dedicated website as part of the state’s final report in December, 2013, years before Halbig’s total failure of a FOIA hearing. An incredible, resounding success, for sure, though he didn’t even bother to download the related videos and instead waited for someone else to upload them to YouTube so that he (or more likely one of his lackeys) could take a bunch of screenshots.

There are a lot of photos here, all of which are available as part of the aforementioned final report. I’m not going to go through each and every one of them as I sincerely believe most normal, reasonable adults recognize that they depict a small, fifty-six year-old public elementary school that has inarguably seen better days, but is still fully functional and poses absolutely no risk whatsoever to its students. Of course, if the school were too new or pristine, deniers would undoubtedly be suspicious and claim that it had been built specifically for this purpose, much in the same way the Lanza home was obviously staged because it wasn’t cluttered enough while Sandy Hook Elementary School was obviously staged because it was too cluttered.

Anyway, I really do love to point and laugh at deniers, so I do want to draw attention to some of Halbig’s more ridiculous or ignorant commentary. Yes, these are really his captions:

Rusted hinges on an exterior, emergency exit door? My God, how did anyone learn anything here?

BENT BLINDS? Shut it down, folks!

What’s funny about that one (at least to me; your mileage may vary) is that a company I do some work for literally just moved into a brand new, multi-million dollar office this week. They went to the studs on the renovation and it really looks fantastic. I showed up a week early in order to help everyone transition into the new space and before a single employee even showed up for work, the blinds in the kitchen were already bent.

Because if Sandy Hook were open and functional, I suppose they’d have nothing better to do than refinish the kinda rusty edge of the giant metal box that sits behind the school, right? That’s time and money well spent, both of which public schools definitely have in spades.

To answer Halbig’s question: because, as per usual, you’re wrong. No one broke any windows to escape. It may sound unbelievable, but some windows can be opened these days. Incredible, right? What a time to be alive!

Here’s what actually happened. Emphasis mine:

In said statement [redacted] related that at the time of the shooting, she was in a meeting with two other teachers, who she identified as [redacted]. [redacted] related that she heard gun fire and smelled what she believed was gun powder. That the gun fire appeared to [redacted] to last “forever” and she as well heard the voices of unknown persons “screaming and crying”. [redacted] opened a window in the room she was in, climbed through it and ran from the school.

Source: Book 5, 00006441.pdf

I’m sorry, but is this motherfucker for real? His dopey ass had months to prepare for this FOIA hearing, and he couldn’t figure out that those are composting bins? The one seen on the very right appears to be a Good Ideas 7 cubic foot Compost Wizard Jr. I guess the surrounding gardening equipment wasn’t enough of a clue? Or the fact that the school’s composting program received a mention in this article from July 20th, 2012:

There is a schedule put in place for different students and families to come to the school throughout the week to water and weed the garden.

Weeds taken from the garden are put in a compost heap, which is part of a third grade project.

In fact, Sandy Hook had plans dating back to 2010 to implement a composting project, as discussed in this article from The Newtown Bee:

Next year a composting project may also be added, similar to Hawley’s program, but both Ms Hammond and Ms Taylor said parent volunteers would be needed.

And while he admittedly has no idea what he’s looking at, he just knows deep down in that sizeable gut of his that they look “unsafe”. What’s going to happen, Wolfgang? Is a child left unsupervised in the school’s courtyard going to fall into one of these 22″ deep bins and then somehow screw the lid on from the inside?

This one – not all that surprisingly – is deceptive, likely intentionally so.

Sure, when you look at classroom #6 through this door, at this angle, it maybe looks as if it could be a little difficult to navigate. And of course strategically placing the text box over the open, “uncluttered” area is a real nice touch. But here’s a panorama of what the room actually looks like on the inside, taken from the same set of crime scene photos:

There is plenty of clean, open space here. It is absolutely not cluttered.

Why would anyone need to open it? It’s clearly not even plugged in.

This is a real one, I swear! It is not a goof. Wolfgang Halbig really does count “strangely painted or smeared cabinets” as evidence that Sandy Hook Elementary School was not functional on December 14th, 2012. People sent him money for this stuff!

First of all, anyone who has ever used one of these dispensers knows that the amount of paper sticking out of the bottom is an extremely poor indicator of just how many paper towels are actually in the stupid thing, especially if it’s touchless/hands-free. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve scraped my knuckles reaching up into a full one for a paper towel (or more accurately a piece of one). Secondly, this photo is of the bathroom door in room #2. Room #2, according to the school’s floor plan, is listed as “possible day care” (while the placard outside of the room says “PROBE”), so I’m not even sure if it was in use at the time. In fact, one of the only other photos of this room included in the crime scene photos (page 679 of Walkley’s scene photos) show it to be almost entirely empty:

So while Halbig is more than happy to point out a possibly empty paper towel dispenser as well as a “dirty wall” (in an elementary school? My stars!) in a likely unused room, he also ignores a number of signs that actual people regularly inhabited this building, such as the can of air freshener, the bottle of soap, hand lotion, toys (seen on the left), and a thermostat that reads 70° in December, making it clear that the heat is on in this building. Surely no one would bother to keep a building that’s (allegedly) been uninhabited for four or five years so warm.

Halbig also ignores an even greater number of paper towel dispensers throughout the building that actually do show paper towels sticking out of the bottom:

That last one even has used towels in the trash! I guess whoever staged the school thought of everything. Well, except to clean the place up well enough to fool ol’ Wolfgang Halbig, of course. But if anyone really needs some paper towels, I think I may know where to look:

This looks promising! Let’s take a peek inside:

Jackpot!

Here’s another case of Halbig not recognizing an object and assuming it therefore must be nefarious:

Look, I’m not sure what this is either, and I’m not going to bother to find out, because who cares? What does it matter? The school had over fifty years to accumulate all manner of things, including electronic equipment that may not be recognizable to most people these days. Ignorance is not an indictment.

So the school closed sometime around 2007 or 2008, but then someone came back at some point to plant evacuation plans from 2011-2012, all while making sure that the magazines in the lobby totally were up-to-date? And this is somehow more believable than a school simply reusing their evacuation plan from the previous year?

Once again, this is room #2, which is listed as “possible day care” on the floor plan and “PROBE” on the hall placard (although it appeared to be unused at the time of the shooting). If this room were to be utilized for day care, obviously you would not want to give children that young the ability to lock themselves in the bathroom. This is why the bathrooms in some day care facilities (as well as some preschools) don’t even have doors. And this is the same guy that was worried children may fall into composting bins.

I’m not sure what the presence of a “potty chair” in an elementary school would prove, but yes, it’s a triangle-shaped “potty chair” that is shorter than a two liter bottle (which is already less than a foot tall), has a teardrop-shaped hole in it, and is actually a three-legged stool. Surely you’ve seen them around. They are extremely popular with new parents.

As someone with extensive IT experience, this one cracks me up. This is one of the school’s network racks. There’s another one by the front entrance, in room 11A-5. This is more often than not what they look like (feel free to click here if you don’t believe me), and there’s zero percent chance children were ever allowed in this room, so who cares?

More “clutter”, according to Halbig, who I guess expects buildings filled with hundreds of children to be immaculate at all times. This just looks like musical instruments in a surprisingly well-organized music room to me.

“The discussion dealt with the consent agenda regarding the Super Bowl permission by Dawn Hochsprung (“the hoax was sprung in the dawn”), documents for which Wolf had requested.” pg. 41

Terrible, tasteless wordplay aside, you are absolutely reading that right: Wolfgang Halbig introduced the batshit crazy “Super Bowl” claim into his FOIA hearing. How did it go? Again, I’ll let SandyHookFacts.com explain:

Records Sought:  Halbig asks for the consent agenda for Jan. 23, 2013 and supporting documents.

Facts:  Newtown provided these documents to Halbig.

Conspiracy Theorist Angle:  Many hoaxer conspiracy theorist believe the children who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting are magically alive, aged 5-6 years, and sang at the Super Bowl in 2013.  These delusional people have published numerous videos and blog posts making such claims.

Halbig has invented a premise that the Consent Agenda for the Jan. 23, 2013 must have had information on sending the Sandy Hook Elementary School Choir to Super Bowl.

Therefore, reasons Halbig, since documents are not present, he did not receive the document.

Commentary:  SandyHookFacts believes that if the general population of Sandy Hook Hoax conspiracy theorists get the names of the chorus, the children and their families will be relentlessly stalked and harassed; much like several others associated, even remotely, to that tragedy. Therefore, protecting these minors from Sandy Hook Hoax conspiracy theorists is essential.

In terms of the FOI request.  Halbig asked for a specific documents. Halbig received that documents.  Halbig’s irrational belief carries no weight outside of the Hoaxer world and certainly carries zero weight in the legal realm.

In this instance, Newtown provided Halbig with his exact request; the consent agenda and attachments. Halbig was unable to grasp the concept that attachments might have a different date than the consent agenda. The commission even tried to explain it to him. These concepts are apparently beyond Halbig’s understanding.

Again, hoaxer attorney L. Kay Wilson offered zero evidence that Halbig did not receive the complete document.

“When asked when the new security system was installed, he stated it was last updated in 2007! This was new information to all researchers and when Wolf was asked why he thought there was a new system, Wolf said every news outlet in America reported that the school had a new system and that the school principal, Mrs. Hochsprung, had sent out letters to parents describing the new security upgrades.” pg. 42

I cover the security system in Chapter Five. In short, we can easily trace the security system all the way back to 2006, based on Newtown’s Building & Site Improvements of the Superintendent of Schools Annual Report for fiscal year 2007. Dawn Hochsprung’s letter to parents – copied from Hawley School’s letter regarding their own strikeplate security system – had been available on Sandy Hook’s website since at least November of 2007.

The claim that “every news outlet in America reported that the school had a new system” is pure fantasy. If it weren’t, surely the book’s authors could provide at least one example from one of the nation’s many, many news outlets. Predictably, they do not.

“Governor Malloy blundered here, no doubt because he did not want to admit that the person who had warned him ‘something like this might happen’ appears to have been Attorney General Eric Holder, who visited with the governor on November 27, 2012, which was only a few weeks before the event at Sandy Hook would go down. Yet the governor made no effort to warn Connecticut school districts to enhance their security due to an imminent threat. I surmise he was in fact told they were going to take an abandoned school and conduct a drill and present it as real to promote the administration’s anti-gun agenda.” pg. 43

So let me get this straight… according to this book, Sandy Hook Elementary School silently closed its doors sometime in 2008 due to an undisclosed asbestos issue. The closure was so quiet and unexpected in fact that no local media outlets ever mentioned it and actually continued to report on the school as if it were still open.

Fast forward to November 27th, 2012. Attorney General Eric Holder is in Connecticut to launch “Project Longevity”, a “community and law enforcement initiative” designed to reduce gang violence in New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford (as it is focused on major urban areas, Newtown is predictably not included). At some point, in a moment that wasn’t captured by any of the members of the media in attendance, Holder informs Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy as well as Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman that there “may” be some sort of mass casualty drill taking place in their state within the next couple of weeks. Oh, and they need an abandoned school quickly and convincingly staged as a backdrop. This is of course in spite of FEMA having already made the “manual” for this drill publicly available almost two months earlier, on October 8th. Governor Malloy, who somehow readies the long abandoned Sandy Hook in such a short amount of time, immediately blows the lid off the whole thing by consciously referencing this secret conversation with Holder during a press conference, though he still plays the drill off as a real event, even referring to it as “a tragedy of unspeakable terms”.

Phew. I sure hope everyone got all of that!

Next: Chapter Four