Taft Union High School Drill Becomes “Real Life”

(Revised)

Was the tragic January 10 shooting at Taft Union High School part of a drill that “went live”? This is the impression one gets when analyzing media reports of the incident, such as those from CNN correspondent Khung Lah.

Taft School District Superintendent Bill McDermott stated that on the morning of January 10 at 7:30AM PST Taft Union High School staff participated in “lockdown training.” The public school, located roughly two hours northwest of Los Angeles, encompasses grades nine through 12 with about 935 students and 64 faculty members.[1]

According to CNN, just one hour after a routine school lockdown drill, a student armed with a 12-gauge shotgun opened fire, seriously injuring another student who was taken to hospital in critical condition.

In a January 10 exchange between CNN’s Anderson Cooper and correspondent Kyung Lah, the latter reveals how the incident arose from a drill that went live minutes later.

Kyung Lah: Another thing that they’re also crediting are drills. The school, Anderson, just this morning, had a drill as to what to do if a shooter was in the school, a drill that became real life just an hour later.

Lah’s observation of the peculiar coincidence was left undeveloped by program host Anderson Cooper, who immediately steered the reporter in a direction more supportive of the overt storyline.

Cooper: Do we know what the teachers, the administrators said to the student to get him to disarm? And also, do we know what the motive of targeting these – like why there was, you know, allegedly this hit list or why he might have targeted these particular students?

Are there historical precedents to such events? Is the US government involved in cultivating terrorist acts? Meticulous researchers and political analysts place beyond question that major terrorist incidents including 9/11 and the London 7/7/05 bombings arose from one or more terror training drills that had the potential to suddenly “go live.” In such instances the only ingredient is the insertion of real bullets or incendiary devices.

In his landmark study, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in the USA Webster Tarpley explains how public terror events can arise from such government drill exercises proceeding alongside and/or in direct association with the unfolding event. For example, when the September 11 terror attacks took place no fewer than 15 governmental and military drill exercises were occurring simultaneously.

“The principle directly at stake here,” Tarpley observes,

is that state terrorists wishing to conduct an illegal terror operation often find it highly advantageous to conduit or bootleg that illegal operation through the government military/security bureaucracy with the help of an exercise or drill that closely resembles or mimics the illegal operation. Once the entire apparatus is set up, it is only necessary to make apparently small changes to have the exercise go live, and turn into a real hecatomb … A drill simulating a terror attack provides the greatest possible camouflage of the criminal intent of the perpetrators and allows the terror attack to occur through minor departures from the scenario script. All these drills try to be as realistic as possible. But the greatest realism is the actual terror attack.[3]

Such apparent subterfuge has become a common feature of terror attacks. Evidence also emerged that during the July 2011 Oslo Norway attacks anti-terror drills were being carried out beforehand when a bomb was detonated in or near the building where the Prime Minister’s office is located. Yet the public only found out what was happening when they began hearing explosions nearby. According to a report in Aftenposten:

Armed police were seen in the area around the opera house in Oslo, and violent explosions could be heard over large parts of the city. No one knew that this was all a matter of practice. The Information Section of the Oslo police deeply regrets that the public was not made aware of the seemingly dramatic exercise….It was the emergency squad, the national police special unit against terrorism, which was conducting a drill in the cordoned off area at Bjørvika pier …. The exercise followed a familiar pattern for all anti-terror forces around the world: The men lowered themselves down from the ceiling and through the window that had just been blown out, while they fired their weapons.

Along these lines following the London 7/7/05 subway bombings Peter Power of Visor Consultants told the BBC that his firm was carrying out an exercise to monitor explosions going off in the same stations of the London underground at times identical to when the real explosions occurred.[4]

At Taft Union, Kero County Sheriff Donny Youngblood explained shortly after the January 10 shooting how the Federal Bureau of Investigation was present throughout the event.

They’re here really to see—to make sure this really isn’t a federal incident. And they’re here to really observe and—and—I mean this is—we knew this was going to get national attention and, uh, our local FBI stepped in and I asked them to stick around because we—they can learn if we have another event down the road of any kind where we use the FBI. We work hand-in-hand. This county has the best interaction with law enforcement agencies probably anywhere in the country, and we want to keep it that way and that’s part of the reason you saw them here.[5]

During many “live shooter drills” professionally trained actors often work in association with federal and state authorities to make the drill look as life-like as possible. For example, according to the Crisis Actors website, in such a mall shooting drill

actors can play the part of the shooters, mall employees, shoppers in the mall, shoppers who continue to arrive at the mall, media reporters and others rushing to the mall, and persons in motor vehicles around the mall … Crisis Actors can also play the role of citizens calling 911 or mall management, or posting comments on social media websites. During the exercise, the producers use two-way radio to co-direct the Crisis Actors team from the mall dispatch center and at actors’ locations.[6]

In other words, throughout such events actors are strategically deployed and manipulated to control the entire situation. In the event that a drill potentially “goes live,” these actors are poised to play decisive roles in determining how such an incident will be presented to news media and the broader public.

It is now confirmed that the FBI is a principal force behind would be terrorist events to perpetuate the “war on terror.” The agency is known for finding impressionable individuals and “assisting and encouraging” them toward committing crimes, including acts of violence.[6]

Suspected shooter Bryan Oliver, a 16-year old now being tried as an adult for the incident, had a reputation for unpredictable behavior and was expelled for several days after threatening student peers. Angela Hayden, whose 16-year-old daughter attends Taft, claimed Oliver threatened to kill her daughter and other students last year while on a field trip to Universal Studios.

“He was telling everyone that he had a list of people who messed with him over the years and that he was going to kill them,” Hayden told the Los Angeles Times. “Everybody knew about this kid.”[7]

The December 14 Newtown Connecticut school shooting included features arguably similar to an “active shooter drill” which, following from the above, is not to suggest that the event did not take place. For example, were “actors” observed fleeing the scene and being apprehended by police outside the school? The identities of these individuals cannot be confirmed as they were not heard from again, the media largely failed to follow up on the suspects, and their identities remain undisclosed by law enforcement.[8]

Further, in the event’s aftermath separate media interviews reveal the seemingly contradictory accounts of parents and residents who in many instances simply cannot seem to get their stories straight.

To date there has been absolutely no video footage or photographic evidence released that would have in all probability been captured on the Sandy Hook School’s new security surveillance system confirming exactly how the incident transpired. Also, the press has been forbidden entry to the grounds despite the fact that law enforcement authorities have repeatedly confirmed Adam Lanza as the sole perpetrator of the mass shooting.

In the event that government authorities may be involved in coordinating “active shooter drills” that have the potential to unexpectedly “go live” one thing is certain: no public spaces remain safe for children or the broader citizenry.

Notes

[1] RNN Staff. “Victim Expected to Recover After Suspect Opens Fire in CA Classroom,” WISTV.com, January 10, 2013.

[2] CNN, Anderson Cooper 360 Transcripts, January 10, 2013.

[3] Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, 4^th Edition, Joshua Tree CA: Progressive Press, 2007, xi.

[4] Webster Griffin Tarpley, “Norway Terror Attacks a False Flag; More Than One Shooter on Island,” tarpley.net, July 24, 2011.

[5] ABC23, Student, “Teacher Shot at Taft High School, [accompanying press conference on video]” January 10, 2013.

[6] Project Censored, “FBI Agents Responsible for Majority of Terrorist Plots in the United States,” October 10, 2012.

[7] “Authorities Probe Whether Taft High Shooter Threatened Students,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2013.

[8] Connecticut State Police Lieutenant J. Paul Vance now asserts that a man police chased into and apprehended in the wooded area by the school’s gymnasium was merely there “chopping wood.” Tim Brown, “Clearing Up a Few Loose Ends in the Sandy Hook Shooting,” Freedom Outpost, January 10.