How Sandy Hook Children Can Sue, at Age 18

by Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB

This article looks at the harm that was done to children in Newtown Connecticut or the surrounding area, who were coerced to lie about the false massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School (SHES). That is, I begin from the premise that the event of December 14, 2012 was a hoax, arranged by governmental authorities and perhaps private groups. (If I am wrong about that premise, the material here can still be useful, regarding children who are coerced to lie about other things.)

I am sure that all children get fed with various falsehoods. There are socially acceptable falsehoods, e.g., that the Tooth Fairy will reward you for losing a tooth, and natural falsehoods, as when parents tell their kids that their family is more successful or admirable than it really is. Also, in school, including college, the young are fed all sorts of information that may or may not be true. For now, I won't attempt to reprimand the purveyors of myths and ideologies.

In the Sandy Hook case, where a hoax has occurred, the parents or community leaders may falsely tell children that it really happened and the kid, if young enough, will automatically believe it. Eventually the adults will also have to teach the kid to positively purvey the lie.

So far this is not something that is "actionable" in court. But let's now focus on a child who has become aware that no massacre took place at Sandy Hook. She may have read on the Internet that it was a hoax and mentions this to her parents, Scout leader, or neighbors. They then tell her that she must not say such a thing.

From this point on, she is in a dilemma. She does not want to shut up about the subject but knows it will not go well for her if she blathers about it at the dinner table or in her high school class.

Note: she may be told, as part of the peer pressure, that local loyalty demands that everyone keep the massacre story alive as it has given new hope for gun control throughout the nation.

How to Redress the Wrong?

This article is about taking legal action against the wrongdoing of coercing a child to lie. Regarding Sandy Hook,there may be many ways for kids to get a resolution of the problem. The adults could apologize, the whole town could meet to express their dissatisfaction with having to be a party to a lie, and so forth. For all I know, such things may come about any day now and so we won't need court involvement. But maybe that day is not ready to dawn, so let's explore the law.

Courts have responsibility for sorting out disputes between two parties. Those disputes are called civil actions (lawsuits). The other famous job of the court is to be the venue for a prosecution by the government of anyone who has committed a crime.

In regard to teaching a child to lie, a prosecution is possible in Connecticut. The relevant crime in that state's law is child abuse. Chapter 939, Offenses against the Person, sec 53-21 says:

"(a) Any person who willfully or unlawfully permits any child under the age of sixteen years to be placed in such a situation that the life or limb of such child is endangered, the health of such child is likely to be injured or the morals of such child are likely to be impaired, or does any act likely to impair the health or morals of any such child ... such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of which five years of the sentence imposed may not be suspended .... "

Thus, if teachers told Johnny to lie about Sandy Hook, they could be accused of having done "an act likely to impair the morals" of Johnny. Imagine the child saying "I want to tell the truth" and the adult saying "No, that would be wrong." Anyway, in this article I am recommending a lawsuit, not a prosecution.

Civil Action: The Tort of IED

A judicial system is tasked with bringing justice between a plaintiff (that is, a complainer) and a defendant (as in "I didn't do it"). The law of torts provides that the damaged person will get "damages."

Certain torts are well established, namely trespass, assault, libel, theft (no matter that these may also be criminalized). IED is the abbreviation for the tort of "infliction of emotional distress."

There are two kinds of infliction of emotional distress, intentional and negligent. An example of negligent IED is where a speeding motorist kills a pedestrian and almost hits another. That other person may get PTSD or lifelong anxiety as a result. No one would say the driver meant it to happen; the damage will be said to have been caused by his negligence or recklessness.

The civil action I am proposing for the grown-up kids of Sandy Hook is of the negligent type. I think the hoax designers had enough on their mind just to plan it, but did not go so far as to think about the moral damage that would be done to children coerced to lie.

I shall now sketch a make-believe lawsuit filed by three plaintiffs.

The social situation in Connecticut today (December 2022) is such that perhaps no lawyer would be willing to represent these plaintiffs. In that case, they could file on their own as a pro se litigant, but "pro se" means "for himself" and therefore you can't have three filing together, just one. It will cost the pro se litigant $400 to file in a federal court. A penniless person can get that fee waived by submitting a form "in pauperis." In the example I have concocted below, a lawyer is assumed; it's not a pro se case. The venue is a US district court.

I'll use fictional names for each plaintiff. It could be any child who was a student at Sandy Hook and who suffered emotional distress from having to lie about the fake massacre. Since I propose that the plaintiffs here have just turned 18 aor 19 in 2022, they would have been second-graders, age 8 or 9, when the hoax took plce ten years ago in 2012.

Instead of blaming parents, I will blame the creators of the hoax, including media, plus a priest who taught the lie from the pulpit.

Note: In the initial pleadings, plaintiffs do not submit evidence, nor do they argue any points of law. They simply make known what has happened and what relief they seek.

United States District Court for the District of Connecticut

Jim Anxiety, Dina Depression, and Bruce Humiliation, plaintiffs
v
Linda Loopish, Director of FEMA for New England States,
Bobby Bluebird, Attorney General of Connecticut
Gary Bull, Official in Charge at the Mandy Brook Fire Station,
all in both their official capacity and their private capacity,
Rupert Murderly, head of Newsamillion, and Newsamillion,
and Reverend Holy Shmoley, defendants

Jury trial demanded

I. Introduction
An “active shooter drill” was scheduled to take place at the campus of the abandoned Mandy Brook School and its local firehouse on December 13th and 14th, 2012. It was run by a combination of local, state, and federal government personnel. The government secretly planned to create a drama in which a 20-year-old boy, loaded with guns, would be said to have entered the school by breaking a glass door and shot 20 first-graders and 6 staff members. The actual students, families, and teachers were subsequently told to uphold this false story. They were threatened with harm if they spoke out.

II. Jurisdiction and Venue. This is a federal case because the direction of the activity was likely led by Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. If a trial is held, the venue should be at some distance from Mandy Brook district, owing to complicated involvement of local officials, civilians, and churches.

III. The Parties. The Plaintiffs are three children who, on December 14, 2012, were in school at a location to which Mandy Brook students has been sent when their normal campus was closed for repairs. The Defendants are three persons who held government positions on the day, plus one that is a media corporation and one who heads that corporation., plus a clergyman.

IV. Statute of Limitations. Connecticut statute of limitations for civil actions is two or three years. It should begin to toll when the injured party reaches the legal age (18) for suing. Under state law, a cause of action may begin when the injury “is discovered or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been discovered.”

V. Injury. These children were age 8 and 9 in December 2012. Their teachers, parents, and neighbors assured them that story of the killings, as reported in the newspaper and on TV, had a good purpose and they must play along with it. Over the years, Jim, Dina, and Bruce, now age 18 and 19, have been reading in social media that many folks ridicule the Mandy Brook story. And some friends are angry with them for participating in the lie. The whole experience has been embarrassing, and caused them depression, nervousness, and suicidal thoughts. Their future careers and marriages will no doubt be marred by it all.

VI. Prayer for Relief. The plaintiffs ask for declaratory relief, by the court’s declaring that the Mandy Brook massacre was not genuine, and for $60,000 each, trebled as punitive damages.

Sworn and signed on _________ at ____________.

Attorney's name and address: ___________________.

My Motive(s)

I wrote the above case as an appendix in my 2021 book "Unreality: Sandy Hook Messes Minds." I mainly wanted to load up on ammunition in my attempts to knock the massacre story. I also have hoped that my book will reach some student of Sandy Hook who wants to try out a civil action. And I wanted to intimidate those who think they can get away with such a hoax.

But on later reflection, I see that it can also function as a statement about the wrongness of controlling the minds of the young in such a way as to screw up their intellect. This seems to be going on in many ways, not just about a particular lie.

Our overlords (maybe the same who organized a hoax for Connecticut or Florida, or wherever) seem to feel no prick of conscience about this. It's as though they own everybody's brain and would like to turn us into robots. That should give extra urgency to a lawsuit of this type.

The above lawsuit is asking for a legal ruling on the causing of emotional distress, which is already a tort. But how did that tort, or the other torts, get established? Over time, the common law gets built up by court cases, when actual injustices of the world seek redress. It is also possible for a state's legislature to enact a statute granting the right to sue for some new tort.

For now it would be enough for even one of my named plaintiffs -- Jim Anxiety, Dina Depression, or Bruce Humiliation -- to go on record with their claim to have suffered anxiety, depression, or humiliation (in sum, "emotional distress'), by having to live a lie.

A Possible Defense

Wouldn't it be funny if the defendants -- FEMA, an AG, a fire chief, a newspaper, and a priest -- tried to fight off the complaint by saying the Sandy Hook massacre really did take place. What a hoot. This would lead to the plaintiff's exercising their well-established right to Discovery, and the court would have to oblige by sending subpoenas to witnesses.

This includes the very people who have given investigator Wolfgang Halbig (a former state trooper) the cold shoulder. He had sought, for example, an answer to the question "Was the Sandy Hook school condemned for asbestos and therefore was unoccupied in December 2012?" Even by using his clear right under Connecticut's Freedom of Information, Halbig got nowhere.

The Discovery process would also bring a subpoena to the door of Leonard Pozner. He recently won $450,000 in damages from Prof Jim Fetzer, by suing Fetzer for defaming him. What did the "defaming" consist of? It consisted of Pozner being called a liar, indirectly, by Fetzer's statement in a book that the Pozner child's death certificate was faked.

In court for defamation, Fetzer was not permitted by the judge to submit affidavits he had obtained from forensic experts doubting the authenticity of the child's death certificate. (And Amazon pulled Fetzer's book!)

I think you can see that courts have refused to let light shine on the Sandy Hook matter. A nineteen-year-old could make it all happen.

The Robert Steele Shocker

One further defense could be brought forward. Instead of pleading that they should not have to pay the plaintiffs for suffering, in regard to a lie, the Defendants could band together, even the priest and the newspaper owner, and say "Yes it was a lie but we did it for the good of the nation." Recall the words of the late Robert David Steele. (You can find this in my book "Unreality"). He said he had managed a false-flag operation overseas when he was a CIA agent. I quote him:

"I have personal experience with ‘legalized lying’ whereby ostensible orders ‘from the highest authorities’ mandate lying to the Court and lying to the media and the public, in support of national security objectives. Individuals ordered to lie are offered both full immunity and severe penalties if they fail to lie as ordered.”

One more thought. Although I geared this article to an 18-year-old's lawsuit, there are plenty of adults, including CIA agents, who can sue for emotional distress -- IED -- caused by having to watch false flags happen in the US (often with real deaths, not hoaxes) and be prevented from revealing it.

Below is a link to my book Unreality: Sandy Hook Messes Minds. It is also available for $15 at Lulu.com and at Amazon. And here is "Then Shall Your Light Shine Forth," from Mendelsohn's oratorio "Elijah," sung by St Olaf's choir: