NEW YORK CITY — Today, the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN), a group of family members of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, issued the following statement:

We who lost our loved ones on September 11, 2001 vigorously applaud Judge Andrew Napolitano and Geraldo Rivera for the courage they have shown in publicly questioning the official claim that the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 was due to fire.

In the week since Judge Napolitano aired his views on Building 7, many voices in the media have singled him out for attack while conveniently ignoring the sequence of events that led to his revelation and the overwhelming evidence that validates his concerns.

This past month, on TV screens across the New York Metropolitan Area, millions of viewers have been seeing footage of Building 7′s collapse for the first time ever. This is because we took it upon ourselves to produce and appear in a TV ad to draw attention to the fact that more than 1,300 architects and engineers publicly join us in challenging the official explanation that Building 7 came down due to fire. We were fortunate enough that Geraldo Rivera saw our ad and invited our representatives to appear on Geraldo At Large. There they presented the irrefutable evidence that Building 7′s collapse could not have resulted from fire as the government claims. Geraldo Rivera then appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano to discuss our campaign and express his doubts about Building 7. The following week, Judge Napolitano courageously voiced his own opinions on this matter.

However, you would not know anything about our position if you are getting your information from outlets like Media Matters and the Huffington Post. On November 29, Media Matters published an article entitled, “9/11 Victim Families Criticize Judge Napolitano Comments,” in which four 9/11 family members were quoted as attacking Judge Napolitano, without a single mention of the more than one-hundred 9/11 family members from NYC CAN who share Napolitano’s skepticism. One family member quoted in the article went as far as to say, “Anybody who talks about that is obviously not a family member and just trying to stir the pot and cause controversy.”

We who lost loved ones on that day cannot stand idly by as our honest search for the truth about their death is trampled upon. We demand that Media Matters apologize for its unfair, irresponsible and injurious coverage of this deeply sensitive issue. And we call upon other voices in the media to follow the lead of Geraldo Rivera and Judge Napolitano, who have so courageously begun to question our government’s scientifically bogus explanation for Building 7′s collapse.

For more information and to view the TV ad, go to: http://www.BuildingWhat.org.