A Gravy Paper: William Rodriguez, Escape Artist

[Gravy]

I think the time limit on editing is something like 15 minutes to 30 minutes..

It's 2 hours.

 

[Crungy]

It's more than that, really. Rodriguez tells us that he initially accepted the official version of events, and he repeatedly tells us what the official version of the basement explosion is. We know that he repeated that version as his understanding of the facts, including to NIST in a public venue in 2004. I've seen no evidence that Rodriguez made any claims of bombs in the basement and no fireball in the elevator shaft before 2005. Those claims do not appear in his 2004 lawsuit. Additionally, he tells us why he began to speak out: not because any new evidence came to light, but because he was angry at the 9/11 Commission.

If someone wrote a paper about me that contained gross errors and misrepresentations, I would make sure that those were corrected or retracted. Rodriguez cannot refute these points, since they are his own statements.

Bump for RedIbis. He seems to have missed this very important bit. Why, for several years did Willie agree with the official report? Why did Willie only change his story when he got pissed off at the 9/11 Commission?

 

[RedIbis]

It's 2 hours.

Thanks, that's helpful, but it would be more helpful if you'd address the questions I asked earlier in the thread:

First of all, isn't Barrett part of MUJCA, and you know what the J stands for, right? Or are you conflating criticisms of Israeli military practices with anti-semitism?

Secondly, if you are going to accuse Rodriguez of associating with anti-semites in a poor attempt at character assassination, why don't you report on his work with Jewish agencies after 9/11?

 

[LashL]

This is on topic in the sense that it is about Rodriguez and how his ever-changing, ever more self-aggrandizing story has evolved and changed over time, but it is not strictly on point to the current sub-discussion. I am loath to another thread unnecessarily, though, so I thought I would post this here. If others think that it should be a separate thread, I'll ask that it be split.

I think that this subject was touched upon briefly in another thread several months ago, but I've been thinking about it in light of Rodriguez' various versions of events and I thought I would put this out in the form of a question:

What would be a reasonable estimate of time for the following to occur:

- Hear loud sound while on the B1 level of the north tower

- React to the sound, begin to interact with co-workers

- Observe walls cracking and ceilings falling down

- Hear and react to co-workers screaming

- Observe a badly burned man arrive at your office from the B2 level (presumably he did not
arrive by elevator but by stairs, in the circumstances)

- React to the badly burned man arriving at your office

- Hear and react to another loud sound while about to pick up a telephone to call EMS

- Observe the building oscillating and walls cracking again

- Observe co-workers moving to stand beneath door frames, expressing the view that it’s an earthquake

- Respond to co-workers, exclaiming, “No, I think it’s a bomb!” and “We gotta’ get out.”

- Co-ordinate evacuation of those in the immediate vicinity

- Carry the badly burned man out of the office on your back, through the B1 level, through the loading dock, up to ground level, and out of the building until you see and stop an ambulance (consider how long it took for the first ambulances to arrive upon the scene after the first plane impact)

- Deposit the badly burned man into the ambulance

- Observe the badly burned man go into a coma

- Listen to the radio of a security guard and a report that an airplane hit the building

- Stand at the base of the building, look up and observe the hole where the plane entered

- Argue with a supervisor about whether or not to return to the building

- Take the radio from the security guard

- Return to the basement (B1) of the north tower and observe water “all over”

- Run to the OCC in the basement of the south tower (consider the distance between the two locations)

- Bang on the windows of the OCC in the south tower

- Observe that there is nobody in the OCC in the south tower

- Observe a man in the basement of the south tower and scream at him to get out

- Go to an entrance of the Marriott Hotel and observe a female employee standing at a podium

- Have a short conversation with her and then push her out

- Run back to the north tower again (B1) (consider the distance between the two locations)

- Find a man who worked for a recycling company

- Have a conversation with him about him hearing screams

- Put your ear to an elevator and hear people screaming that they are going to drown

- Ascertain that they are in an elevator stuck between levels B2 and B3

- Look around and find a metal pipe

- Put the pipe between the elevator doors and with the help of the man from the recycling company, open the door (which opens vertically rather than horizontally)

- Observe water rushing into the elevator shaft and rising higher on the people trapped inside the elevator between B2 and B3

- Recall that there may be ladders in the loading dock area

- Go to the loading dock area and locate a ladder

- Return to the elevator carrying the ladder on your back

- Drop the ladder into the elevator shaft

- Climb down into the shaft

- Open the grid (presumably this is the rooftop of the elevator car)

- Rescue the two people in the elevator below (considering that the elevator was stopped between B2 and B3, this would presumably entail dropping the ladder into the elevator to allow the two passengers to climb up the ladder to the roof of the elevator car, and then hoisting the ladder back up to the roof of the elevator car and setting it up on the roof of the elevator car in order to climb back up to B1)

- Take the two passengers upstairs to ground level and out of the building

- Put these two people into an ambulance

- Return to the north tower again

- Go down to the basement (B1) again

- Locate another individual in the basement

- Go up to the lobby

- Climb up 50+ flights of stairs to the 27th storey, bumping into people who are their way down because the stairways are narrow

- Have a conversation about where to locate water on that floor

- Go to the “other side” of that floor

- Observe a PA officer break into a vending machine to retrieve bottles of water

- Locate trash cans to carry the bottles of water

- Return to the previous location on the 27th floor

- Find an office with a working telephone

- Make a phone call to Puerto Rico and speak to your mother

- Have a conversation with your supervisor over the radio

- Continue up the stairs another ~10 flights to the 33rd floor

- Go to a supply closet to retrieve dust masks

- Locate a woman lying on the floor

- Have a brief conversation with the woman

- Stand the woman up, take her to the stairwell, speak to others who are coming down from higher floors in the stairwell to ensure that she goes with them

- Make note of noises on the 34th floor above and make a conscious decision not to enter that floor

- Continue up the stairs (in a different stairwell) another ~12 flights to the 39th floor

- Hear another loud sound

- Turn around and head back down the stairs


I'll stop there for now, but will note that Rodriguez claims to have done all of the foregoing between the time the first plane hit the north tower and the time the second plane hit the south tower (which is a span of 17 minutes).

Yes, 17 minutes.

I think that this is impossible, and I think that it indicates serious errors in Rodriguez's assumptions, suppositions, and assertions. (Note that I used the word "errors" and not "lies", because, frankly, I would be surprised if he didn't make mistakes about the events, but since he's telling - and selling - his story as "factual", I think it's worthwhile to explore the errors.)

So, what do you think? What is your reasonable estimate of time for all of the foregoing to occur?

 

[Gravy]

I don't think this is a fair characterization, LashL. Rodriguez didn't state a specific number of minutes in which those events took place. He stated that they happened before flight 175 hit the south tower. His main error, IMO, is not knowing when the south tower was struck. It's bizarre that he didn't take the time to think about his own story, but I don't get the sense that he was trying to fool anyone. It's such an obvious error to anyone who knows when the events happened.

One thing to stress in that chronology is another obvious, and truly bizarre error he makes: that he believed another loud sound he heard on the 39th floor was 21 floors of the tower collapsing and coming to rest five stories above him.

 

[LashL]

I don't think this is a fair characterization, LashL. Rodriguez didn't state a specific number of minutes in which those events took place. He stated that they happened before flight 175 hit the south tower. His main error, IMO, is not knowing when the south tower was struck. It's bizarre that he didn't take the time to think about his own story, but I don't get the sense that he was trying to fool anyone. It's such an obvious error to anyone who knows when the events happened.

One thing to stress in that chronology is another obvious, and truly bizarre error he makes: that he believed another loud sound he heard on the 39th floor was 21 floors of the tower collapsing and coming to rest five stories above him.

I do not think it is a mischaracterization. Rodriguez claims to have done all of these things between the time the first plane hit the north tower and the time the second plane hit the south tower, which was a span of 17 minutes.

That said, I see your point as it might relate to my choice of wording. I did not intend to mischaracterize Rodriguez's claims in any way, so perhaps I should not have written that he "claims to have done all of the foregoing in 17 minutes" but rather that he "claims to have done all of the foregoing between the time the first plane hit the north tower and the time the second plane hit the south tower (which is 17 minutes)". When I was writing it, it did not occur to me that it would be construed to mean he actually timed it and actually said those words, but in retrospect, I can see how it could be interpreted that way.

I'll fix that.

On the second point, while Rodriguez's story may be an "obvious error" to those of us who know the details and who give a damn about accuracy, I don't think it is at all obvious to twoofers (who won't bother themselves with such minor details as reality) or to the loons Rodriguez panders to on his speaking gigs in the U.S. and other countries; thus I think it's worth setting out in detail to make it clear.

As to your final point, yes, I agree that Rodriguez's claim about a 21 storey collapse above him is a bizarre (and wholly unsubstantiated) claim but it wasn't really relevant to the timing issue, which was my point, since for the purposes of timing, it included only hearing (and misinterpreting) a message of a few seconds duration on a radio. I agree that it is significant as to the veracity of his stories overall and certainly as to his inability to properly interpret what he claims to have heard, but it doesn't strike me as particularly significant to the timing issue.

 

[Disbelief]

I saw Rodriguez use "ball of fire." Where does he say explosion?

In the very same post, read it again.

'When the explosion happened in the basement there was fire all over, and this guy tried to cover his face… '” (Video: William Rodriguez An American Hero. 2005, Snowshoe Films)

So, now you agree that Rodriguez did change his story? In the CNN transcript, he never uses the word explosion but he does say "ball of fire."