Who Gets The Last Laugh Now?

photo by Michael Goldman

The widely distributed falsehood that Father Mychal Judge was administering last rites to a fallen firefighter when he was fatally injured, was a public relations scam, a lie endlessly repeated by authorities, which never had a grain of truth to it. There wasn't a moment when Firefighter Christian Waugh, if no one else, could not relate to us the eschatology of Judge, the manner and circumstance of his death, and his nascent afterlife, having shared his last moments with him in close proximity. Like bringing a puppy into the house, having taken it upon himself to "retrieve" the body of Father Judge, he became responsible for it, and for all the failings in reporting the details of his demise.

Failings being the sarcastic reference for a United States Federal government that wouldn't know the truth if it bit them in the District of Columbia. Since the story of Father Judge's death was told in scores and scores of news reports, it could not have been accidental that this untruth was propagated. Especially given the lie was so much more compelling than the truth.

If anything, evidence and testimony show that Father Judge was giving an interview to Jules Naudet at the time of Tower 2's collapse and his mysterious death.

Angels of Darkness. Can you believe this image is only 24.6KB? His Powers!

If Father Judge had been vulnerable to falling objects while giving last rites out on the plaza, to a fireman fatally wounded by a falling jumper, he would not have removed his helmet. There is no sacramental reason to remove the headgear other than it sounds reverential in the storytelling. But America prefers cheap sentiment.

Judge, with his tightly strapped NYFD Chaplain's helmet on for the duration.

Father Judge's status as Victim # 00001 was likewise a public relations stunt. If anyone deserved that right it would be Danny Suhr, the firefighter killed by the falling body---we are told. But since Father Judge's was the only open casket funeral in all of the 3000 deaths which occurred on 9/11, his special status was assured.

But in the testimony of Firefighter Joseph Meola, we are told that Danny Suhr was killed by a jumper off the South Tower onto Liberty Street, about as far away from the location on the plaza where Judge was said to have been killed as one could get.
File No. 9110287 WORLD TRADE CENTER TASK FORCE INTERVIEW

"After we left 10 and 10, as soon as we walked outside the door, a firefighter from an engine company 2 -- I believe it's 216, Danny Suhr, just outside 10 and 10's quarters on Liberty Street, got hit by a jumper. They were pulling him away. I believe they got him into an ambulance, and they were yelling at us to get away, because jumpers were jumping from the south tower onto Liberty Street, and a few jumpers came close to us..."

The two people closest to Father Judge in the Lobby of Tower 1, according to their own testimony and the video evidence, were Christian Waugh and Jules Naudet, both of whom are cavalier about the manner in which Father Judge died, hypothesizing a heart attack, or a blow during the debris storm of the first tower's collapse (with Jules Naudet even mentioning the marble off the walls as a possible culprit.)

However, no other responder stationed in the lobby surrounding Judge was hurt or killed. Father Judge is shown on the Naudet film wearing his protective helmet standing amid a swarm of other firemen.

William Cosgrove, a self-dispatched traffic policeman, outside of any chain of command, had no legitimate reason to be in the lobby of Tower 1. His involvement supposedly stemmed from his tripping over Father Judge's body, then you couldn't get rid of him. He never checks for a cause of death, such as head injury.

Firefighter Zachary Vause, was detached from his temporary unit, Truck 7, that morning because they left without him, so he too was outside any chain of command. He performed minimal attempts to resuscitate Judge, never checking to note head injury.

Father Judge died of blunt force trauma to the back of his head according to a friend who attended the autopsy, Brian Mulheren, a retired high-level New York City police detective .

In a bizarre and freakish scene in the Naudet film, the dead body of Father Judge is depicted being carried by four firemen, who are directed to set him down ("Put it down! Put it down!) while other firefighters, including chiefs, mill about, while a fifth firefighter brings up a chair, ostensibly to effect a transfer, although by all reports, the litter bearers did not transfer Judge to the chair until they were outside,

The firemen are treating Father Judge's body with great disrespect and contempt. ("Put it down! Put it down!)

A metal chair without pads on the leg ends would not be found in a marble-floored lobby and must have been planted in advance. The chair was a brilliant impromptu device, but introduced here clumsily in the dark of Naudet's documentary, where it reads clearly as a scripted element.

It is a mystery how Father Judge's body left the custody of the firemen, to be taken up by a mixed group consisting of a policeman Cosgrove; ringleader Waugh, free-lancer Vause, a spare OEM government agent, and even a short bond trader, and by that I mean---not tall.

We are told that there were several burn victims who succumbed in the lobby but no effort was made to retrieve their bodies. Since no one is aware that Tower 2 has collapsed---they say---what was the justification for the retrieval of Father Judge's body?

Was the intent of removing Father Judge's body to place it in the gutter of Vesey Street as they did?

Firemen are expert at carrying bodies, with or without a body board, including up or down staircases. Why was Father Judge sat up in a chair during his removal? Has such a thing ever happened before or since?

Kevin Allen, of the Office of Emergency Management, was supposedly lost and looking for his boss Calvin Drayton, but we see Drayton in the lobby, with his boss, Richard Sheirer. Why could he not discern his location?


Allen says, "I didn't know he was a priest at that time. It wasn't 'til we got to Church Street and I saw the white collar that I knew. I said, ‘Oh, my God.'" However, in a scene in the Naudet film, someone narrates, "And then I realized it was Father Judge. We saw him lying at the base of the escalator where we were, and I removed his white collar and I opened up his shirt and remember checking for his pulse and realizing in that time that he was gone." So all Allen gets is hung up on a gratuitous lie.

As Father Judge was being put on display during the portage, the Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton shot the first image, where Christian Waugh is angrily pointing at him, supposedly telling him not to take pictures. However, this image was spoiled by Father Judge's head slipping out of view, leaving the unfortunate illusion that Vause's head and torso belonged to Judge's lower extremities. So that narrative detail was a script misfire and reads as such, since Waugh didn't keep his mouth shut about the errant business. We could have projected our own meaning onto the dramatic scene.

The presence of an additional MSNBC film crew to witness and record the portage is extremely unusual and damning.

The core group of men hauling Father Judge, receives help from other bystanders who peel in and out like an Olympic torch relay as the principles grow weary.

Shannon Stapleton was also gifted by a positioning at the "survivors staircase," another heavily promoted public relations effort, and there took other narratively rich, heavily scripted, and no doubt, wildly profitable images.

Given that other, unknown firemen took Father Judge from his dumping spot in the gutter to his temporary haven in St Paul's chapel, do Vause, Waugh and Cosgrove feel like they did a sufficient job? Was it Cosgrove's story that he and another cop gave Father Judge's corpse the last rites as a way of closure? Were there witnesses? Why did Cosgrove "have to set the record straight" in the New York Post article? Did the proper caretakers of Father Judge's body demand the clarification?

Did they take Father Judge's body and lay it in the gutter next to an ambulance, or was it next to a firetruck? Was that the same firetruck where Father Judge's driver, Firefighter Michael Weinberg, and Capt. Daniel Brethel's bodies were laying?

Did Weinberg and Berthel come in on their day off and stumble onto some sort of secret scene on Vesey Street having to do with the bombing of Building 7? Were they disposed of in consequence? Or was it just another coincidence that the these two also died, crushed under a firetruck when the North Tower collapsed? It was good that their families could be notified so quickly--by that evening. There were few deaths as traumatic, yet as accessible, as these two I should think. Were there other deaths out on Vesey Street? Did autopsies check for gunshot wounds?

"That morning, as thousands of New Yorkers ran for their lives toward midtown, Judge jumped in his Fire Department car. With firefighter Michael Weinberg at the wheel and the siren wailing, they sped downtown toward the World Trade Center."
(Security Magazine 'Five years after: from Father Mychal to better protection' Sept 1, 2006)

"Fr Judge, 68, was found by firefighters on the street lying beside his driver, who was also dead. They took the priest to St Peter's Church on Barclay Street, where they laid his body at the altar. It is understood he was hit by falling rubble. (The Scotsman 'Victims themselves, those who sought to bring succour and safety' Sept. 13, 2001)

CNN Memorial: Michael Weinberg

Of course, the big scripted event was coming up: 3000 mourners at the funeral with ex-President Clinton, Hillery and Chelsea.

A not-happy Mort Weinberg at the White House in 2005

Christian Waugh sure gets around. Is this Fulton Street? Gee, it was only two short blocks from your "freedom escalator" to St. Paul's chapel, lazy bones. You do see how by cutting corners you run the risk of getting caught don't you? Just like all the anti-Roe-vs-Wade contractors in Iraq---they lost the frigging war, numbskulls!

Killing Him and Carrying Him

When Christian Waugh Junior subsequently gets himself in trouble, ask yourself, what heinous act does a guy have to do to a woman who has had sex with 300-400 firemen and cops after 9/11 in order to tip her over to cry rape? And what fireman resigns his job rather than testify, even though he's been offered immunity? What other nefarious crimes could come to light under examination? Hard to keep your sense of humor under those conditions.

Photo by Al Paglione

No, not really.

I've created an extensive bibliography of news sources relating to Father Mychal Judge, Michael Weinberg, and Capt. Daniel Brethel here.