Next, Thorn's confusion as to when two separate pieces of news footage were taken leads to yet another outrageous claim. In the aforementioned WABC footage of police activity in the woods, officers are seen running past an open storage shed. Working from the false premise that this footage was taken at about 9:39 a.m., Thorn tries to make the case that news footage taken later in day showed the door of this shed closed.
"[H]elicopter cameramen filmed six SWAT [Special Weapons And Tactics] team members dressed in military gear searching the SHES grounds for other gunmen," Thorn wrote. "While doing so, they used a crowbar to bust off the lock and pry open the door of this very same shed."
In his attempt to prove this alleged anomaly, Thorn cites an article from the UK Daily Mail that marks the arrival of SWAT at 9:45 a.m. He reasons, therefore, that the officers in the WABC footage could not have possibly run past a shed that had not yet been open. "A flagrant error in the timeline of events had reared its ugly head," wrote Thorn.
In live CNN time-stamped coverage of the SHES massacre, law enforcement officers and a K9 are seen congregating near the closed shed on the eastside of the school at 11:14 a.m. According to the NPD radio transcript (corroborated by publicly released audio), a conversation beginning at 11:30:23 a.m. between Dispatcher Nute, Sergeant Kullgren and Sergeant Bahamonde reveals that CSP SWAT, K9s and others are now in the process of conducting a fourth full sweep of the school grounds.
Assisting in that search was K9 Officer Felicia Figol, who was called in to assist from an off-site location at 10:58:24 a.m. Officer Figol indicates by radio that she has arrived at SHES at 11:11:58 a.m. In the SWAT video footage referenced by Thorn, Officer Figol and her dog can be seen assisting with CSP SWAT as they pry open the door of the shed and inspect the interior. From there, Officer Figol assisted in a search of the wooded area on the eastside of the school and called in clear from Treadwell Park at 11:48:17 a.m. Officer Figol's statement can be found in Book 6/Document 00038691.
Therefore, the opening of the shed occurred sometime between 11:14 a.m. (when it was last seen closed in live aerial footage captured by CNN) and 11:48 a.m. when Officer Figol's participation in the search concluded. That means the shed was opened at least 36 minutes before the three officers passed it on their way up into the woods at 12:24 p.m.
Thorn goes on to laud Papaherakles' "prowess for uncovering details" in relation to the mass evacuation of children from SHES. "[A]fter 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," Thorn wrote. "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."
Here, Thorn and Papaherakles absolutely betray readers
by failing to address the fact that CSP Trooper dash cams did capture footage
of the evacuation but that it was redacted in accordance with state law. From
the CSP Final Report on Sandy Hook:
" CGS - 1"-210 (b) (3) (B): Nothing in the Freedom of Information Act shall be construed to require disclosure of records of law enforcement agencies not otherwise available to the public which records were compiled in connection with the detection or investigation of crime, if the disclosure of said records would not be in the public interest because it would result in the disclosure of the identity of minor witnesses."
The
evacuation of SHES took place between approximately 10:00 a.m. and 10:33 a.m.
and is well documented in the reports of several participating law enforcement
officers contained in Books 4 and 6. In addition to the reports, the CSP
released footage from three CSP Trooper dash-cams. Footage of the evacuation
itself was redacted from the dash-cams and in place of the footage was a black
screen with the words "Content Redacted." The timeline
of the evacuation is outlined in the aforementioned CSP Major Crime Squad
report, which describes the activity that has been redacted from each CSP
Trooper dash cam.
According to the reports, most of the children were evacuated from the
northeast corner of the school (left side if looking directly at the front
entrance). That footage was captured by the dash-cam of TFC John McGeever.
Although the CSP were relatively thorough in their redactions, one savvy Sandy Hook researcher located vague but unmistakable
evacuation footage of several minor children that had been apparently
overlooked by the CSP editor(s).
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