Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood?

In this article titled, Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood? we will examine the lack of blood evidence at SHE and look at who cleaned up the Sandy Hook crime scene and what, if any, qualifications are required to do so.

I realize some may find this topic morbid, distasteful and wholly unnecessary. Honestly I wish it wasn’t noteworthy. I have no more desire to delve into this topic than you may to read about it. Unfortunately there has been one question that has nagged at myself and Sandy Hook researchers from day 1…where’s the blood?

I pondered on this topic for quite awhile. I came close to writing an article about it several months ago but thought better of it. Recent information regarding the cleanup of SHE has made me reconsider.

Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood?

Some might wonder why this subject is even a topic of conversation or investigation since the school, after all, was ground into dust and hauled away. While true, at the time the clean-up would have been necessary no one could have (should have) known that the school would be demolished. For all anyone knew that school would need to be put back into shape for the re-arrival of children at some point.

So, while the topic may be morbid I think it’s a conversation worth having.

Before I get too far into this I must give credit to Sofia Smallstorm for getting me pointed in the right direction for this examination.

Sofia had heard about a podcast in which one presenter (from Newtown) had mentioned speaking with the person responsible for the (at the time) upcoming clean-up of SHE. After some searching and some help from Kennedy we were able to find the podcast.

The presenter’s name is Rachel Basch. This is a snippet of a letter she wrote to the Connecticut General Assembly calling for stiffer gun control measures.

Rachel Basch Submission to the Connecticut General Assembly

My name is Rachel Basch. I’ve lived in Sandy Hook for 24 years. For 9 years, when my children were very young, we lived in a house directly behind the Sandy Hook School. We treated the school yard as an extension of our backyard. Until Friday, Dec. 14th, the hallways and the classrooms of that school were the matrix of all that was sweet and generative in my experience of life on this planet.

At the following link you can hear Ms. Basch recite an audio diary of her thoughts and experiences that Friday in December, 2012. Ms. Basch’s portion begins at approximately the 19m50sec mark of the file. Should you wish to jump directly to the section relevant to the clean-up, it begins at approximately the 31min mark.

Rachel Basch Audio Diary

We walk to the building next door. We’ve taken over this space, “come in.” We go into a badly sheet-rocked room that contains nothing but 5 metal folding chairs. These will be extra counselling rooms, separate entrances for adults and children.

Jim Maguire said to, “just take the space and we can work out the details later…or never.”

She tells me that the Maguires, who own the building, lost a son some years ago. Jim owns a restoration company, too. They’re gonna be the ones going into the school to do the cleanup. We have counsellors lined up to talk to him and his crew before…and after.

Admittedly this audio diary is not as solid a piece of evidence as I may have wanted but I do think, given Ms. Basch’s history in the area and her first hand encounters on the very day of the event, that this account is very likely accurate.

Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood?

Before I get to the how and who of the clean-up I think it might be worthwhile to compare Sandy Hook to another fairly recent event, the Aurora theater shooting.

Should you be wondering the banner accompanying this article has a photo of the scene outside the Aurora, Colorado movie theater where it is alleged James Holmes entered and started shooting. I chose it specifically due to it’s occurrence in recent history and due to the fact that the shootings, like SHE, occurred indoors. No one was shot outside the building.

Note that all the blood able to be seen in the photos has been spilled/tracked outside from inside. The blood is even able to be seen from aerial helicopter footage.

Comparisons with photos from Sandy Hook show nothing even remotely similar which, in my opinion, is rather astonishing given that there were more victims and more people exiting the building.

This is a crime scene image released by the Ct State Police. It shows the patio area immediately adjacent to the front doors of SHE. Many people exited through the front doors that day including at least 2 rather large groups of children.

This is a high resolution aerial of SHE. Click on the image for full size.

No blood. No trails…no smudges…no drops…nothing. How could that be? Perhaps this account of a woman calling Lt. Vance to ask about the crime scene cleanup will answer the question. This account comes to us courtesy of Sofia Smallstorm’s video Unraveling Sandy Hook.

I don’t have a computer of sufficient power to quickly edit the pertinent section out of the video so you’ll just have to scroll to it yourself. It’s at the 1hr26min mark. or if you haven’t seen this video I would recommend viewing it in it’s entirety.

Update – I found the clip contained within Sofia’s doc should you wish to listen to only it. I’d still recommend viewing Sofia’s vid if you have yet to do so.





Unraveling Sandy Hook





Caller relating her conversation with Lt. Vance:

Who did the blood clean-up at Sandy Hook? And he was totally caught off guard. At first he said, “what blood?”

“26 people died in that building, who cleaned up the blood, Sir?”

“Uhh, I don’t know…You’ll have to call the violent crimes unit.”

Unfortunately the caller didn’t have the means to record her conversation with Lt. Vance so we have only her word as to it’s accuracy. Although, given the apparent cleanliness of the area outside the school, I may have also asked, “what blood?”

Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood?

To continue the discussion of the cleanup we first need to understand what blood is, or more accurately, how it is classified.

I’m including the link to the .pdf file from the Ct Dept of Energy & Env Protection for regulations pertaining to solid waste management…but I wouldn’t advise clicking on it unless you enjoy long-form legalese.

Department of Energy & Environmental Protection

Sec. 22a-209-15. Biomedical waste

‘‘Infectious waste’’ means waste which is capable of causing an infectious disease, is one of the wastes listed below, or is waste identified as infectious by a licensed health care provider.

(2) Any body fluid, waste human blood, or waste blood product, any container of any of the foregoing, and any disposable item that is saturated or dripping with a body fluid or that was saturated or dripping with a body fluid and has since caked with dried body fluid.

‘‘Body fluid’’ means any substance which emanates or derives from the human body, including but not limited to blood, semen, vaginal secretions, cerebrospinal fluid, synovial fluid, pleural fluid, peritoneal fluid and pericardial fluid, but excluding feces, urine, nasal secretions, sputum, sweat, tears, vomitus, saliva, and breast milk, unless any such excluded substance contains visible blood or is isolation waste.

From the above we can see that blood is not only a bodily fluid but also bio-waste and (potentially) infectious waste.

To this point I have been unable to find any specific regulations regarding who MUST clean up a crime scene. That is to say I have not found any law that says you can’t clean up a crime scene or suicide scene on your own although I can scarcely imagine anyone wishing to do so. What I have found is innumerable regulations regarding the handling of bio-medical waste (BMW), the packaging and transporting of BMW and regulations regarding the training and safety procedures for those handling BMW.

Companies dealing with BMW have to follow regulations from several different agencies including, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)…and that’s just the federal agencies. There are also individual state regulations to be adhered to.

This is a link to the OSHA’s regulations for dealing with bloodborne pathogens, for example.

In this letter to the OSHA someone is asking about the regulations dealing with the handling of lab coats, etc from a dental practice. OSHA tells the writer they have to follow all the same rules regarding potentially infectious materials.

As you can see it is no small matter dealing with the handling or clean up of blood, potentially infectious materials or bloodborne pathogens.

So who was it that was hired to handle this delicate and highly specialized task? A professional crime scene cleaner with years of experience? A special task force from the CDC or the EPA?

Not quite.

According to Rachel Basch it was JP Maguire & Associates.

Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood?

And what kind of work does JP Maguire do? This answer from their FAQ page to the question, What emergency services does JP Maguire provide?, provides a summary.

JP Maguire provides emergency contracting service for fire, water, mold, storm, vehicle impact and smoke damage. Our response time in most cases is under 2 hours. We will coordinate crews for your specific needs, such as electricians, plumbers, tree removal, roofers etc. Call us. We’ll get what you need to ‘just make it go away’.

There are detailed listing for all their services including, Fire and Smoke Damage, Water Damage, Wind Damage, Vehicle Impacts, Mold Remediation and Disaster Reconstruction

I found absolutely nothing alluding to their qualifications for handling BMW, bloodborne pathogens or Other Potentially Infectious Materials (OPIM). They are, by all indications, simply a restoration company like so many others across the country.

Needless to say I found this just a little surprising. It’s even more surprising when you take note of how Newtown handled another potentially messy situation in their town.

Police Probe Uncovers Odd Situation At Vacant Berkshire Road House

After investigating a report of suspicious activity having occurred at a vacant, rundown house at 82 Berkshire Road (Route 34) in Sandy Hook, town police determined on Friday, April 26, that unusual, but not criminal, activity had taken place, police said.

Newtown Police Lieutenant Richard Robinson said that an investigation found that someone had left between 200 and 300 one-gallon plastic jugs filled with urine within the house…

About 15 people including state police, state environmental officials, town police, environmental cleanup workers, as well as town health and building officials, went to the property on April 26 to determine what had occurred.

Clean Harbors, Inc, an environmental cleanup firm, carted away the many jugs of urine, Town Health Director Donna Culbert said Friday afternoon.

Clean Harbors Inc

Clean Harbors is the leading provider of environmental, energy and industrial services throughout North America. The Company serves a diverse customer base, including a majority of the Fortune 500 companies, thousands of smaller private entities and numerous federal, state, provincial and local governmental agencies.

Within Clean Harbors Environmental Services, the Company offers Technical Services and Field Services. Technical Services provide a broad range of hazardous material management and disposal services including the collection, packaging, transportation, recycling, treatment and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste. Field Services provide a wide variety of environmental cleanup services on customer sites or other locations on a scheduled or emergency response basis.

To recap…

To haul away a couple hundred jugs of piss we hire a top-notch, North America wide environmental cleanup company but to clean up the worst school shooting in US history we hire Jim, the guy you call when your water heater bursts.

So…who was it that chose JP Maguire & Associates for this job rather than one of the several specialized crime scene cleaners operating in the greater NY/CT area? Unfortunately we don’t have the specifics on that but we do have this…

Contractor Moving Furniture from Sandy Hook: ‘I’ve Seen Things I Don’t Even Really Want to Talk About’

Al Barbarotta, owner of AFB Construction, has been working since Saturday with Newtown and Monroe officials after getting a call from the Connecticut Commissioner of Education’s office.

“Instantly, on Saturday, we started bringing in cleaning crews and moving crews to get the furniture out,” Barbarotta said. “I’ve seen things I don’t even really want to talk about. There’s markings on the floor. There’s blood everywhere. You can see the broken windows in the classroom in the whole area where the shooting took place.”

To keep the crime scene at the school uncompromised, Barbarotta said his crews built plywood partitions isolating the scene.

Needless to say, a couple of things immediately jump out at me. “Instantly on Saturday we started bringing in cleaning crews”? They started cleaning the scene and moving furniture on Saturday? Long before any investigation could possibly be completed?

And of course… There’s blood EVERYWHERE

But maybe they didn’t clean the scene…To keep the crime scene at the school uncompromised, Barbarotta said his crews built plywood partitions isolating the scene. So what are your cleanup crews cleaning if you’ve blocked off the affected areas to maintain their integrity?

Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood?

So who is Al Barbarotta and how did he get this assignment? Conveniently enough he is a close personal friend of Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy. Unfortunately for the Gov. Mr. Barbarotta has gotten himself in a bit of hot water with Newtown officials for using some “heavy-handed” tactics to drum up some extra business while handling his Sandy Hook duties.

Barbarotta’s sales pitch at Sandy Hook

When Al Barbarotta, the governor’s close friend and manager of his private Stamford property, was approached by the Malloy administration in December to coordinate the relocation of school equipment from the shattered remains of Sandy Hook Elementary School, he said he would be happy to help, free of charge.

But Newtown officials say Barbarotta made a sales pitch to them during that traumatic move from Newtown to Chalk Hill School in Monroe. Additionally, he later sent them a sales brochure that state officials say improperly used the logo of a government agency.

“Here you are in the midst of a tragedy, and this guy is trying to sell you stuff,” said one Newtown official, who asked not to be identified because he is not an authorized spokesman. “He really upset a lot of people.”

MmHmmm…. You can view the sales pitch sent out by Barbarotta HERE

We also have this…

Trumbull Auditor’s Draft Report Targets Al Barbarotta

Al Barbarotta should not serve as both the facilities manager and the owner’s representative for the Trumbull School District, according to one recommendation of a recently-released draft report by Internal Auditor James Henderson.

Several of Henderson’s findings claimed Barbarotta had conflicts of interest and tried to influence the town to use companies in which he served.

Specifically:

“As the facilities manager for the Board of Education, Barbarotta attempted to influence the Board of Education to hear a presentation and potentially hire an energy company to perform energy efficiency services for the school district. Mr. Barbarotta holds a management position with Conveo Energy, the company in question.”



“Barbarotta and Conveo Energy LLC and officials of the Trumbull Board of Education attempted to circumvent the public bid process to award Conveo Energy LLC to work outside of the normal bid procurement process. Town officials also worked to assist Mr. Barbarotta in providing Conveo Energy LLC with pertinent information that would have provided them with an unfair advantage if energy efficiency services were to be publicly bid.”

“Mr. Barbarotta attempted to influence the first selectman, the chief of police, members of the Emergency Management Shelter Building Committee, to install a fuel cell instead of a generator at Trumbull High School.” Barbarotta lobbied for Conveo Energy, Henderson said.

So there you have it. The crime scene was cleaned by a company with no apparent qualifications to do so and they were likely contracted by a man of questionable character who just happens to be good buddies with the Governor.

There’s just one more thing that I find curious. I don’t recall, nor can I find, even one mention of Mr. Barbarotta’s company or Mr. Maguire’s company ever having to sign any confidentiality agreements prior to beginning work at the school.

But perhaps when your company motto is, “We Just Make It Go Away”, that’s all you really need to know.

As a final aside…I was trimming my dog’s nails this week. I’m pretty good at it. I’ve never clipped the “quick” even though her nails are black. Well…this week, for the first time, I clipped the quick. I couldn’t believe how much it bled and how long it took to stop.

By the time it was done I had (have) blood all over the place. The linoleum cleaned up pretty well but the carpet has stains that will remind me of her long after she’s gone. She even left some frozen globs in the snow.

And that was one toenail…from one dog. Not the life’s blood of 26 human beings.

Update 04/18/14

Having had the opportunity to read through most of the official Sandy Hook report I can now tell you who it was that “officially” handled the cleanup operation for Sandy Hook school and the Lanza home.

You can click on the above banner for the full page. That page can be found at CFS 1200704559 – Book 2 – 00198991.pdf of the official report.

As we can see, contrary to information provided earlier, it appears that it was not JP Maguire that cleaned the school, it was actually Clean Harbors. I ask why they didn’t hire Clean Harbours to do the job…then the report comes out and lo and behold…Clean Harbors. How convenient.

Case closed, right? Well…not quite.

A dedicated Sandy Hook researcher by the name of Kelley from Tulsa took it upon herself to investigate this further. Kelley was well aware of the comments of Al Barbarotta regarding his role in the clean up and how he stated that he had been in the school the next morning with a clean up team…so she called AFB Construction (Barbarotta’s company) and spoke with Mr. Barbarotta. When pressed on the issue Mr. Barbarotta admitted that they didn’t actually “clean up” the school. They simply collected books to be moved from SHS to the new location at Chalk Hill. Kelley went on to ask, “If you didn’t clean it up then who did?” Kelley was informed that it was handled by the FBI’s forensic division.

Not willing to stop there, Kelley called her local detachment of the FBI. She asked them a hypothetical…”If there was a mass shooting in Tulsa would you clean up the blood or would you call someone else to do it?” The response…”No, we would not do that but the police may.”

This particular issue becomes even more muddied when we take into account this section of the report.

As we can see from the above file (which can be found at CFS 1200704559 – Book1 – 00085169.pdf) The SHS crime scene was turned over to The Town of Newtown/The School District and the NPD on the 21st of Dec. Granted, if you check the 1st paragraph of the 00198991.pdf it says that State Police turned the school over to the town on the 28th of Dec. Regardless of which day the actual turnover occurred, why is the FBI handling the clean up assignment which doesn’t even begin until the 31st?

Something else I think is worthy of note are the comments regarding the moving and removal of items from the 2 classrooms affected by the shooting and conference room 9. Apparently conference room 9 was the room used as a sort of command center for the salvaging of items from the 2 classrooms.

2 classrooms that had yet to be cleaned. A hallway covered in the blood of Dawn Hochsprung and Mary Sherlach that hadn’t been cleaned. The inner door area of conference room 9 where Natalie Hammond sat and bled while waiting for police…not cleaned…yet police spend the better part of a week in there.

When we turn our attention to the Lanza residence we see that the FBI also handled the assigning of a clean up crew for that property. This time the crew is an actual crime scene clean up crew called Aftermath Specialists. As with the SHS scene the State Police was in control of the scene at the Lanza’s and the site wasn’t turned over to the Lanza’s until after the cleanup was done. CFS 1200704559 – Book 2 – 00198985.pdf

And what of Rachel Basch, the author and longtime Newtown resident who gave us her 1st hand accounts of that day including how JP Maguire would be handling the clean up of the school? I contacted Ms. Basch to ask her about this discrepancy. I explained that I had heard her audio diary and that it appears to not jibe with the official account. I asked her if there was a possibility that she could have been incorrect and this was her response.

“I absolutely could have been incorrect in stating that JP Maguire was involved in the cleanup of the school. I’m not a reporter. And this audio diary was an excerpt from an essay I wrote for n+1, which was a highly personal account of what the first few days felt like here for me in my town. I wrote it at the end of Dec. 2012, when the world was still very much upside down.”

I wrote back thanking Ms. Basch for her response and asked if she could tell me who it was that had passed along these details to her. Ms. Basch did not respond. I waited a few days and wrote back explaining that I don’t need to know the actual name of the person but I would appreciate it if she could provide me the role/position/authority of the person that had passed along the info. Again, Ms. Basch did not respond.

One final note regarding this issue of clean up before I put it aside for the time being.

Keith Johnson of the site MetaBunk took on the issue of the SHS clean up and this article. Specifically the issue of whether or not JP Maguire had the qualifications to do a cleanup of that kind. Even though there is zero mention of such qualifications on the JP Maguire website Mr. Johnson somehow manages to come up with just such a mention. Scroll down til you see JP Maguire.

I have no idea where this comes from nor can I find it’s original source. The only place you’ll find it mentioned is in the post by Mr. Johnson. It seems very odd that a company would invest in the equipment required to handle crime scene clean up and not bother to advertise those services. Frankly I’m highly suspicious and skeptical of the appearance of this piece of information.

Mr. Johnson ends his debunking post by attempting to contradict a point in this article, namely, the necessity of stringent transport requirements and permits for bio-medical waste.

“It also appears that a trauma clean-up company can transport blood or blood contaminated items without a licensed transporter. According to DEEP:”

“A transporter permit is not required for a generator of biomedical waste who transports his own biomedical waste from its original generation point to a central collection point pursuant to RCSA Section 22a-209-15(g)(14)(A-C).”



Unfortunately Mr. Johnson missed the boat on this one. Crime scene cleaners are not “generators” of biomedical waste. A hospital, for example, would be considered a generator of BMW. Unless the crime scene company was responsible for murdering people they could not, in any way, be considered a “generator” of BMW.

I have tried to sign up to MetaBunk to correct these assertions but am apparently not allowed to join. Perhaps you’ll have better luck. You can find the post here.

Thanks to Kelley from Tulsa for her assistance and all the other researchers and investigators that continue to toil in anonymity in an effort to find the truth of this event. You are all appreciated.

-swansong-

What are your thoughts regarding Sandy Hook Evidence:Where is the Blood? Think anything is strange in the way the cleanup was handled? Think they were in there kind of fast? Or is this just an irrelevant aside to a tragic event?