I have conducted over 1,000 radio programs over a period of seven years. During that time, no one ever accused me of being rude to a guest. On March 4, 2014, I had Wolfgang W. Halbig on my program. He knew that we held different views on Sandy Hook and knew exactly what to anticipate and he was prepared. He seems somewhat like a down-home, everyone’s friend, perhaps deliberately dim-witted, and a bit bungling. He is reminiscent of Lieutenant Columbo who appeared to need extra assistance at every turn. In Halbig’s situation, according to him, if he can just collect enough money, then he can use his self-proclaimed expertise to bring the perpetrators of an alleged hoax to justice. He claims that the “hoax” had been in the planning for two or three years.

Early in the program, when I began asking Halbig some precise questions, he accused me of trying to discredit him and I responded by saying that people tend to discredit themselves, often through their actions and inconsistent rhetoric. People who regularly and unfailingly tell the truth may occasionally have memory failure but people who compulsively lie need to have an unfailing memory lest their lies catch up with them. I believe that Halbig inherently uses the Delphi Technique or that he was trained as a facilitator. Following are some statements from researcher/writer Lynn Stuter about the way facilitators use the Delphi Technique:

“There are ways to diffuse the technique when you see it being used by Delphi ‘facilitators.’ Stuter gives the following three steps:

1. Always be charming, courteous, and pleasant. Smile. Moderate your voice so as not to come across as belligerent or aggressive.
2. Stay focused. If possible, jot down your thoughts or questions. When facilitators are asked questions they don’t want to answer, they often digress from the issue that was raised and try instead to put the questioner on the defensive. Do not fall for this tactic. Courteously bring the facilitator back to your original question. If he rephrases it so that it becomes an accusatory statement (a popular tactic), simply say, “That is not what I asked. What I asked was . . .” and repeat your question.
3. Be persistent. If putting you on the defensive doesn’t work, facilitators often resort to long monologues that drag on for several minutes. During that time, the group usually forgets the question that was asked, which is the intent. Let the facilitator finish. Then with polite persistence state: “But you didn’t answer my question. My question was . . .” and repeat your question.

“The key is to never become angry (or frustrated). Delphi facilitators win when they make you angry. If you get angry (or frustrated), you become the bad guy making the facilitator the victim; most people will side with the victim in a two-way battle.” [1] The first person to raise their voice automatically loses.

For almost two years, starting within just hours of the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, several people in the so-called “truth movement” have attempted to discredit thousands of people while promoting ludicrous claims. A few people, including me, are not supposed to ask any questions that might cast suspicion on those referred to as the Sandy Hook hoaxers. It is amazing that presumably well-educated academics, such as James Fetzer, would support and collaborate with someone who has faulty, unreliable credentials, seems irrational and unprofessional in his interactions with others. Those of us who believe, because of the massive evidence that twenty-six people were slaughtered at Sandy Hook must remain silent or, if we oppose the hoaxer’s unsubstantiated theories, we are accused of being paid agents or worse. Someone even accused me of being intoxicated while conducting the interview with Halbig which is ludicrous because I do not drink, ever. All of this occurred within an environment that is supposed to endorse critical thinking. I anticipate more attacks on my character from those who are incapable or unwilling to defend their position with rational and respectful dialogue. Such behavior functions as commentary on the veracity of one’s views or perhaps on one’s objectives.

I dared to ask Halbig some very direct questions. As a guest on other radio shows, I listened to Halbig as he subtly controlled the conversation which is the same as framing the debate or establishing the flow of conversation but most particularly the subject matter. Most of the hosts accommodated him and, almost or perhaps deliberately, in a complicit manner, and dismissed any caller who challenged Halbig. Of course, there are callers who resort to ad hominems or character assassination, when he/she is incapable of rationally addressing the topic and in that case, the host should protect the guest and hang up as I did when Dr James Fetzer called into my program when I was interviewing Keith Johnson.

Many people thought that I was rude to Halbig because I tried to avoid surrendering control of the program to him and his objectives and domination of the conversation. Usually, my guests have adequate time to fully discuss their topics as time allows. While Halbig demands answers from others, he adamantly avoids answering questions that might suggest he is less than honest. He prefers the illusion that he is open and transparent, and freely gives out his home phone number and home address. Why shouldn’t someone demand some answers from him? I have an easily-accessible track record of research, writing and broadcasting. I did not just suddenly appear. I earned whatever trust people have placed in me. I have a legitimate right to ask Halbig about his credentials and past experiences and to verify his claims. He and others who claim that Sandy Hook was a hoax should have absolutely nothing to hide if their claims are legitimate. My mantra is and always has been that truth does not fear investigation!!!! He knew almost a month earlier that we had different views on Sandy Hook. Please listen to the audio of Halbig’s phone call into my AFP program of February 11, 2014. I was not cooperative, so, like a spoiled, disgruntled child, he hung up.

He had emailed me twice early that morning, although I had not previously communicated with him. He was apparently preparing for his call into my program to try to discourage my investigation into Sandy Hook. Keith Johnson and C. W. Wade, on my RBN program of December 14, 2014, provided a wonderful response to Halbig and others regarding the parents and how they appropriately responded to the horrific situation on December 14, 2012.

Obviously, there are probably dozens of other questions that one could ask. The time frame for the questions are based on the YouTube version of my interview with Halbig, A Closer Look at Wolf Halbig and Sandy Hook – Spingola Speaks 3-4-14; Video version of my questions for Halbig

Questions for Wolfgang W. Halbig:

History and Education:

1. You state on your web site that you were in the U.S. Air Force from 1967-1970 and that you were part of the Strategic Air Command, a Combative Measures Instructor, a Disaster Preparedness Instructor and a Physical Fitness Specialist. What was your AFSC (MOS)? Based on your reported age (b. 1947), did you join the air force at age twenty? How/where did you acquire all of the skills necessary to teach others the things that you claim?
2. In the interview, you stated that you were the class president and at the top of your class at the FHP Training Academy, had top-secret clearance and was assigned to a presidential detail. What president was that and where were you assigned to that detail?
3. Were you at the top of your class academically or did you excel in other activities? You said that you were tired of putting people in jail but wanted to prevent people from going to jail and went into the educational field instead. Did you actually just fail to pass the probationary period of your trooper job?
4. On January 22, 2014, you wrote a letter to the Newtown Board of Education stating that you had been Florida State Trooper in Miami (1974-1977). Yet you state on your resume that you were a trooper from 1974-1975. You also state that you were a teacher/coach at the Vanguard High School in Marion County (1975-1983). This conflicts with what you told the school board; why?
5. You stated in our interview that you had been a “school administrator” for thirty-six years after being a trooper (1974-1977). Thirty-six years from 1977 would end in 2013. You also said that you were a customs agent in 2002 for about a year to a year and a half or two. In your resume, you state that you were a customs inspector (1993-1994). Which is it? How could you function as a national school safety expert, a customs inspector, a teacher, an administrator, and a coach? Were you a customs inspector at the same time that you were the Assistant Principal at Lake Mary High School, from 1993-1994?
6. How did you manage to train personnel in 4,000 US school districts, a claim you make, along with all of your other activities?
7. In the interview, regarding Columbine (1999), you first stated that you were “not called” and I asked who hired you and you said Justice and I said, the Department of Justice. You said “right.” I asked you when they hired you and you said, “When you get a phone call from the Department of Education … implying that they had called you. I repeated the question and you said April 21, 1999. You added, “There are a lot of us; there is an expert out of California, Ron Stevens, one in Washington… you said that they asked us to come out and “see what happened so that they could make it safer next time.” You said, “I worked as an expert in researching the response of how law enforcement, swat teams and the paramedics responded to Columbine.” Did you report the results of your research to the DOJ or to the Department of Education? Why is there no record of your participation in Columbine except an article that you wrote for a local Florida newspaper?
8. You state that you were a guest on Dateline (NBC) and Good Morning America (CBS) talking about school safety. Where are the links of those programs for verification?
9. You state that you have testified before a Congressional Commission studying school safety and security. What was the date of that testimony and where might one find the transcript?
10. When you were in charge of Risk Management for the Lake County School District (2005-2009), you obtained a Domestic Security for School District Instructor’s Course (DSSD). Thereafter, you state that you were an instructor and have trained “3,500 school police officers for the Justice Department.” What are “school Police officers?” Are those in addition to you training personnel in 4,000 school districts?

There is a huge difference between someone who has credentials and a verifiable history versus someone who claims to have credentials and a provable history. Ken Trump, the President of National School Safety and Security Services wrote about school safety experts that one can trust. Trump is the author of the 1998 best-selling book, Practical School Security: Basic Guidelines for Safe and Secure Schools , and more than 80 articles on school security and crisis issues. His second book Classroom Killers? Hallway Hostages? How Schools Can Prevent and Manage School Crises (2000). His most recent book, Proactive School Security and Emergency Preparedness Planning (2011). Trump has been interviewed ABC World News Tonight, ABC Nightline, ABC 20/20, ABC Prime Time, CBS This Morning, CBS Evening News, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel, Geraldo at Large, Good Morning America, The Today Show, MSNBC, NBC Nightly News, The O’Reilly Factor, Associated Press, Newsweek, Time Magazine, USA Today, NY Times, and Education Week. He says that many people, seeing a profitable opportunity, decided to enter the school safety expert business following Columbine. In an email from Ken Trump (3/16/2014), he said, “I could not disagree more with Mr. Halbig’s opinions about Sandy Hook being a hoax.”

Business and Occupation:

1. You created the National Safe School Institute, Inc. on August 13, 1999, a corporation that existed for a relatively short time. You were listed as the president and at the same time, as the Director of The National “Break the Code of Silence” Foundation. On September 28, 2000, Halbig established and was one of three directors for The National “Break The Code of Silence” Foundation and here at 160 International Parkway, in Lake Mary. Given numerous examples of his writing and language skills, does anyone actually believe that Halbig wrote In the Lull before the Storm…Break the Code of Silence. Halbig has also altered his views about the potential of school violence and mass shootings.
2. If one were to scour the Internet searching for information about you as a school safety expert, he/she would fail to find any history or mention of you as a school safety expert other than your fraudulent claims in connection to Sandy Hook. Why?
3. You established the National Institute for School and Workplace Safety in 2001, which was defunct in less than a year. Was this during the time that you were a “school administrator”?
4. You established the Children’s Safety Institute on October 29, 2012. Why did you take down the CSI web site three days after I interviewed you and challenged your credentials and the references that you used on the CSI web site?
5. When you created the Children’s Safety Institute business, you gave six references, two of whom were deceased; one who died a year before and one who died three years before you created your business? Using dead people constitutes a falsification of credentials. What other credentials have you falsified?
6. Why did you imply, using a street address, 5703 Red Bug Lake Road, Suite 103, that your business had a physical office, when it was actually just a mailbox at Mailboxes Etc.?
7. Regarding your letter to the Newtown school board, I asked you, “Was it your objective to acquire information to assist you in your work through the Children’s Safety Institute?” You said no. It was to train teachers in their handling of “autistic children” who were experiencing “sensory overload.” Yet, on October 29, 2013, you emailed Captain Joseph Rios, a Newtown police official, demanding copies of the contracts and costs for the Crime Scene Cleanup. In your email, you stated that you were the Chief Investigator for the CSI and a school safety expert “which now requires this information to be made available since it has been eleven months and you have not even provided a simple police or incident report.” ^[2] You made the same statement to me in an unsolicited email that you sent (2/11/2014), the day that you called into my AFP program. You said, “I am the Chief Investigator for the Children’s Safety Institute who protects children and young adults with Autism from serious injuries if not death.” What did you investigate?
8. On December 2, 2013, you emailed Sally Cox and said, “I am a trainer for the US Justice Department COPS IN SCHOOL PROGRAM.” How long have you been a trainer for the US Justice Department in the COPS program?

Halbig’s Sandy Hook Research:

1. On January 9, 2013, you posted a message on Face Book about the mental health issue and its connection to school shootings. You have not addressed that issue since. Did someone ask you not to bring up that issue again? You should be fully aware of the incident of psych drugs and their tie to violence in the schools and the fact that schools receive extra money for children who have special needs such as those on psych drugs.
2. In the interview, I asked when you became interested in Sandy Hook and you said that it took you a week to “figure it out” and concluded that Sandy Hook was a hoax based on your review of the 42-minute WABC helicopters on CNN Live. You claimed that it was not Sandy Hook but that it was another school that they were using. What do you base that on? You said, “As an expert witness, I can only look at data and it not what I think or what I believe.” What other research did you personally conduct? Where have you appeared as an “expert witness?”
   

3. I asked you if you looked at the official reports, you said, “I have looked at each of the documents” in the CSP’s official report. If that is the case, why did you express surprise when I mentioned the nine books, the major portion of the reports? When I asked you if you read all of the reports in book 6, you said, I don’t know what book six is.” The official report gives all of the answers to the questions that you have been asking.
4. You mentioned that one member of the SH Advisory Commission had called the report a data dump. If you have read the report, why do you discourage others from reading it? Do you want to interpret it for others? Why have you misrepresented data from the report?
5. On February 19, 2014, Dr. James Tracy posted several emails that you sent to numerous officials in Newtown in September, October and November 2013, saying that you were a former Florida State Trooper, the Chief Investigator for the CSI and a school safety expert, and demanded answers to questions. You said, “We in law enforcement are on duty 24/7 always on call.” You regularly claim to be part of some law enforcement brotherhood with such phrases as “We are law enforcement partners for life.” Why did you call these people cowards, insinuating that they were derelict in their duties, failed to act appropriately, suggested that the police chief be fired, suggested that there was a lack of common sense in Newtown, you demanded paperwork and completion dates, and demanded the names of contractors, and the asbestos inspection reports for the school, which are online via the school district’s reports? You asked for contracts/costs for the Crime Scene Cleanup in Decontaminating and Sanitizing. You accused the FBI of negligence. What provoked this furious flurry of letter writing? Was it because you had embraced the claims of others?
6. Did you really expect that the use of profanity, poorly-executed emails and time-consuming demands would actually produce the results that you were seeking?
7. You claimed that Sandy Hook was a “scripted event in the planning for maybe two years” On what do you base that claim?
8. You said that if “they,” presumably meaning that if the lying, derelict, cowardly people of Newtown could answer the sixteen questions, then you would believe that children died.
9. Have you changed your mind about children dying since our interview?
10. Others, by reading the official reports, have obtained answers to those sixteen questions. If you had actually read the entire report, you would have found the answers to your questions. On your web site, you say, “Please all focus on those sixteen questions then we will move to the next set of questions.” Is it your goal to ask questions or simply raise money that you never give an accounting of? Why do you keep asking the same questions that have already been answered – Questions answered
    
11. I stated that the first responders parked right in front of the school and not a quarter mile from the school as you have claimed on many radio programs. Report #113999 explains exactly where the first responders parked – William Blumenthal’s dash cam showed that the cars were parked right next to the school. That report, “in their own words,” stated where first responders parked. One unit parked on Crestview, at another entrance to the school, as the police did not know what they were dealing with. Why do you keep stating that the first responders parked a quarter of a mile away?
12. I mentioned the DHS booklet Active Shooter How to Respond (2008) on how law enforcement was to respond to an active shooter incident. When I explained DHS policies and reiterated that they had followed them to the letter. You said that you have a FEMA Certificate (2006) and said, “I am an instructor and you are telling me that … “I teach people this class.” I then repeated, “You said they did not follow policies.” Then you said, “I am an instructor, Hello Deanna…(using ridicule). I asked you where you instructed those classes and you said, “Across the country when I do safe school workshops. I trained 3,500 school police officers”… “For the Justice Department” I asked you where, and you responded “Did you not read my resume?” (again using ridicule). You tend to avoid specifics. I then asked you about your statement that they did not follow HS FEMA policies if you were in fact teaching those policies. You changed the subject and claimed that they didn’t “order helicopters or let the paramedics in.” I responded that “that is not true.” The FEMA guidelines do not mandate the ordering of helicopters and paramedics were some of the first people into the school. Officials arrived at the scene in three minutes and 11 seconds – some of whom were EMTs and paramedics.
13. Why did you add words to the police dispatch (9:55:31, 12/14/2012) just to justify your theory that Sandy Hook was a hoax?
14. You visited the office of The United Way in Newtown to obtain its records of donations/dispersals that are readily available online as obligated by law. When do you intend to post the donations/dispersals that you have collected? Have you paid any radio hosts to promote you or help you in your actions against anyone in Newtown?
15. Usually police personnel defend each other. You question the behavior and accuse Newtown police officials of dereliction of duty while ignoring the alleged harassment by local police officials. Have you filed a civil suit against those local officers for harassment?
16. Much of the credibility that you have achieved was through your claims that the local Florida authorities threatened you and told you to stop asking questions about Sandy Hook. You were in the midst of a radio interview and announced that you had to hang up as the police had arrived again. If you are the astute investigator that you claim to be, why did you leave in the midst of the show instead of putting your phone on speaker so that the listeners could listen to the police harassing you?
17. Others have been asking questions about Sandy Hook yet no one else has experienced local police harassment. Did the local police really visit you about Sandy Hook or about another matter such as the arrest of your son Eric for domestic battery on 12/14/2012 who thereafter moved into your home? Or was it because of your harassing calls and emails to public officials?

[1] As quoted by Carolyn Dean MD ND, Death by Modern Medicine: Seeking Safe Solutions: 3rd Edition, Perfect Pitch Editions, Kindle Edition, 2012, Locations 2012-3586

[2] James Tracy, Wolfgang Halbig’s Quest For Sandy Hook Truth, March 2, 2014, http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/wolfgang-halbigs-quest-sandy-hook-truth/