An event was held on Sept 7 to remember the victims of 9/11

What caused the twin towers of the World Trade Center to collapse precipitously onto their own footprints on September 11, 2001? Was it solely due to the impact of the airliners that flew into them and the subsequent fires, or did somebody detonate pre-installed explosives or incendiaries to demolish those buildings, as in a controlled demolition?

The latter hypothesis has been ridiculed and dismissed as a kooky conspiracy theory by the mainstream media for years. Indeed, if such allegations were true, the events of 9/11 would point to a conspiracy so vast, the legitimacy of the United States government would be severely undermined.

As uncomfortable as this line of inquiry may be, a group of activists have been gathering evidence that seem to support the controlled demolition theory. On September 7, they organized an event at the All Souls Church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to remember the people who perished on that fateful day. With over 200 people in attendance, the activist group also provided an update on their efforts.


Not Run-of-the-mill Conspiracy Theorists

The investigation, led by Lawyers Committee for 911 Inquiry (Lawyers Committee) and Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) are remarkable in two ways:

First, they have presented their evidence, none of which were previously considered by the various bodies commissioned to investigate the events on 9/11, to various U.S. government agencies, imploring them to adjudicate the validity of the evidence.

Among those efforts is a petition filed by the Lawyers Committee, with subsequent amendments, with the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York to empanel a grand jury to investigate.

The petition contains 60 exhibits of forensic evidence. Among them are a 60-page testimony from 118 firefighters on the scene, who recalled hearing explosions before the buildings collapsed, and a 33-page document naming individuals “who may have information material to the investigation, including contractors and security companies that had access to the WTC Towers before 9/11, persons and entities who benefited financially from the WTC demolitions, and persons arrested after being observed celebrating the WTC attacks.”

According to the executive summary of the petition,  “Federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 3332(a), requires the United States Attorney who receives information concerning an alleged federal crime from any person, if requested by that person, to provide that information to a special grand jury. The Petition emphasizes that this federal law creates a duty on the part of the United States Attorney, and removes the prosecutor’s discretion in deciding whether to present information to the grand jury.”

In other words, the U.S. Attorney must present the evidence to a grand jury after they receive the evidence.

On November 7, 2018, assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Ferrera and Ilan Graff acknowledged in writing their receipt and review of the original and amended petitions, and affirmed: “we will comply with the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3332 as they relate to your submissions.”

The second remarkable aspect of the group’s effort is they recently received an endorsement from the firefighter community. Speaking at the memorial event, the Lawyers Committee president David Meiswinkle said the fire commissioners of New York’s Franklin Square and Munson Fire District “have just done a historic resolution in a vote, and are now taking the lead to try and get some truth and integrity to the investigation to what happened on 9/11.”

Speaking at the event for AE911Truth, the group that assembled the evidence cited in the petitions and lawsuits, Richard Gage acknowledged the importance to have their efforts endorsed by the firefighter community: “the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District… became the first elected body in the country to officially support a new investigation into the events of 9/11.”

Noting “the overwhelming evidence presented in said petition demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries — not just airplanes and the ensuing fires — caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings,” the resolution states, “the Board of Fire Commissioners of the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District fully supports a comprehensive federal grand jury investigation and prosecution of every crime related to the attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as any and all efforts by other government entities to investigate and uncover the full truth surrounding the events of that horrible day.”

After passing the resolution, Fire District Commissioner Christopher Gioia had remarked: “We’re a tight-knit community and we never forget our fallen brothers and sisters. You better believe that when the entire fire service of New York State is on board, we will be an unstoppable force.”

Update on the Litigation

At the memorial event, the Lawyers Committee’s lead petition litigator Mick Harrison gave an update on the status of the petition.

Although the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York had acknowledged it would comply with 18 U.S.C. § 3332, it would not divulge whether a grand jury had indeed been convened, because the law requires that the proceedings of the grand jury be kept secret. To ensure the evidence have been presented to a grand jury, Mr. Harrison told the audience that the Lawyers Committee had recently filed a mandamus lawsuit to compel the U.S. Attorney to disclose whether the evidence had indeed been handed to a grand jury, or if not, direct the U.S. Attorney to hand the evidence to a grand jury.

Fire Commissioner Christopher Gioia of Franklin Square and Munson Fire District speaks at the memorial event

Fire Commissioner Rallies the Firefighting Community

Commissioner Christopher Gioia of Franklin Square and Munson Fire District also attended the event. He spoke to Vision Times about why he supports this investigation.

A former marine and a 33-year veteran firefighter, Mr. Gioia has also worked over 30 years in the heavy construction industry with expertise in reinforced concrete, major foundations and structural steel.

He witnessed the attack from across East River on 9/11, and lost a good friend, Thomas Hetzel, when the towers collapsed. Out of loyalty to his friend and to the country, he had been following the investigations into the attacks.

“There’s a lot of garbage on the internet, there’s a lot of conspiracy theories. I don’t entertain any of that. I want to stick to the facts and what can be proven,” said Gioia. In conversation with other engineers, he learned about the peculiar collapse of Building 7 in the afternoon on 9/11.

“Somebody mentioned Building 7 and showed me some videos. Just by looking at the videos it piqued my curiosity. Looking on the internet, I’ve been doing research on the buildings and from testimonies of people who were there that day, looking into all aspects of what happened,” he said, “I found out after a number of years, there’s a lawyer’s group that submitted a petition to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, to get a grand jury to investigate allegations and evidence they put together in this petition. I downloaded the petition and saw that they have testimonies from firefighters and policemen, and they also have expert opinion from engineers and scientists in regard to the forensic evidence.

“Based on that and the photographic evidence, it is obvious that Building 7 was brought down by a controlled demolition. The building collapsed symmetrically, and the building collapsed symmetrically from the bottom down. Building 7 was not hit by a plane. They said there were raging fires, that’s not true. There were fires on several floors, it did sustain damage when the north tower collapsed, and the fires pretty much had gone out by the time the building collapsed in the afternoon of 9/11.

“If you look at the pictures, and they had pictures of the building falling from all angles, you could see that the roof line starts to collapse, and then the sides of the building buckle, and then the whole building just falls uniformly, straight down.

“Just being in the engineering field, I work on high rise building, bridges, tunnels, I know what goes into them. For a building to collapse uniformly, straight down, all the columns would need to be severed at the same time. From a firefighting stand point, fire does not act like that. I agree there was damage, I agree there were fires, but the damage was asymmetrical. You cannot have a symmetrical collapse… Even NIST admitted the building fell at free-fall speed, which is only possible if you have controlled demolition… so that really got me going.”

As a fire commissioner, Gioia told the surviving family of his friends that he might be able to add some weight to move the petition forward.

“I’m keeping an open mind; I’m not embracing conspiracy theories. If the grand jury looks at the evidence and decides what is factual and what needs to be investigated further, that’s the way it needs to go. If they disallow some of the evidence, that’s fine. It’s just that the grand jury has the ability to subpoena witnesses; they have the ability to do things that have never been done before,” said Gioia, “I don’t believe 9/11 has ever been in a court of law. It’s been before a commission, it’s been investigated, I would say, sparsely. The grand jury is a serious investigation and that’s what we need to do. This way we can get to the bottom of what happened that day. If there are people out there who are guilty of committing the crimes, then they need to be held to account.”

After the passage of their resolution, the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District received phone calls of support from firefighters in New York City.

“The support is tremendous… most firefighters know that something other than what we’ve been told occurred. That just needs to be proven now. City firemen have called the fire district, they were supportive of the new investigation,” said Gioia.