Stoneman Douglas “crisis actor” theories debunked

ByCraig Haley

A number of conspiracy theories have been spreading online about the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, many aimed towards two surviving students, David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, who have since appeared in numerous media interviews advocating stronger gun control laws.

Far-right conspiracy laden websites have targeted both Hogg and Gonzalez, and done essentially what they always do; claim everything is fake and everyone involved is a “crisis actor”. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting is no different.

As always, most of the claims are plain false.

David Hogg appeared on TV in 2017 in California?

A media interview with David Hogg in California is being used a “proof” that Hogg is indeed a crisis actor that travels to various locations. While the interview with Hogg (screenshot below) is real, it had nothing to do with guns, and Hogg did not claim he was a current student there.

The interview was in response to a viral video capturing a confrontation with a beach lifeguard. Hogg’s own Twitter feed posted about the interview along with the claim that he had only been there a week. Another tweet showed Hogg travelled to Los Angeles for the summer. The interview had nothing to do with guns or gun control.

An individual travelling to another city a year before the shooting and being filmed there by media concerning a totally unrelated issue is hardly outside the realms of possibility, so we don’t see how this is indicative (much less proof) that Hogg is some kind of crisis actor.

Did David Hogg accidentally say time was 9.32am in interview? Fact Check

A popular claim by conspiracy theorists asserts that during an interview with a fellow student while hiding in a closet during the shooting, David Hogg accidentally slips that the time is 9.32am, when the shooting didn’t take place until past 2pm.

The claim relies on footage of a “mash-up” of interviews by David Hogg put together by the International Business Times (the IBT logo is present on the footage used to “prove” this claim.) The first part of the footage sees Hogg interviewing a student in what they say is a closet during the direct aftermath of the shooting, and then the video peels off to an aerial view of school kids being evacuated while Hogg continues to speak, identifying his interviewee as “Alex View” and claiming the time is 9.32.

The confusion here is that the viewer believes the narration from Hogg continues in real time from the moment he is seen interviewing a female student in the closet to when the video begins showing aerial shots of the school being evacuated, when that doesn’t appear to be the case.

For one, the interviewee appears to have changed. This can be heard in the voices of both girls, but also in the first segment in the closet, Hogg is interviewing a fellow student named Isabelle Robinson, who can be seen here and whose account claims she did in fact hide in a closet. And when the video peels off to aerial shots of the school, Hogg is now interviewing someone he identifies as Alex View.

Since the interviewee has changed so suddenly, it is likely that as the video changed from Robinson in the closet to the aerial footage of the school, another new audio clip begins playing, this time during an interview with Alex View. Because this is a new audio clip, there is no suggestion it had to have been taken at the same time as his original interview with Robinson. As such, this audio clip could have been taken at 9.32pm (Hogg never identifies whether it is 9.32 am or pm in the audio) after the kids had been evacuated from the school. (Spectators claim that “police radios” can be heard in the background of both audio clips, though we suspect those noises may be new reports playing on the smartphones of those in the immediate vicinity; at least one person in the closet can be seen looking at their phone.)

David Hogg is a graduate of Redonda Shores High School? Fact Check

A Classmates.com profile appears to show a member by the name of David Hogg graduating from Redonda Shores High School. However, buried in the source code of the webpage (for some reason it’s not visible on the profile itself) it reveals the profile was created on February 20th 2018.

Additionally, a popular troll Twitter account named Laguna Beach Antifa, the same account that posted a fake picture of the shooter Nikolas Cruz, claimed to show a screenshot of Hogg’s yearbook with the assertion that the yearbook was for Redonda Shores High School.

The yearbook was actually for Stoneman Douglas High School – the troll Twitter account perhaps missed the photo above Hogg clearly showing another classmate wearing a Douglas Eagles top, as pointed out by fellow Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Sarah Chadwick. Other Stoneman Douglas students posted videos of themselves opening the yearbook and pointing to David Hogg to remove any doubt.


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David Hogg’s father was a retired FBI agent? Fact Check

This claim is true. Hogg has made no secret of that fact, mentioning it in one of his interviews…

I think it’s disgusting, personally. My father’s a retired FBI agent and the FBI are some of the hardest working individuals I have ever seen in my life

How that fact is indicative that Hogg is a crisis actor, we don’t know.

Emma Gonzalez is on IMDB. Fact Check

When it comes to conspiracy claims that are deranged as they are illogical, the claim that one of the crisis actors actually has a public profile on the Internet Movie Database is definitely up there. These absurd claims assert that the government, while looking for actors to covertly play the roles of mass shooting survivors as part of a grand national conspiracy, will actually pick an actor with a profile on IMDB.

In reality, there are 6 Emma Gonzalez’s listed on IMDB in various roles, and there is no proof that any of them are the Emma Gonzalez from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And even if she did appear on IMDB, we’d imagine an actor with a public profile wouldn’t be the best pick when looking for covert actors to orchestrate a conspiracy.

Video shows David Hogg “forgetting” his lines

Footage of student David Hogg verbally stumbling during a live interview has also been circulating under the assertion that this is “proof” that Hogg is a “crisis actor”.

Baseless assertions masquerading as evidence such as this are typically the hallmark of any “false flag” conspiracy theorist’s narrative. It seems that the bar for what qualifies as proof is sunk remarkably low when it is being used to promote or confirm the conclusion of the conspiracy theorist.

That is to say, while this video does show Hogg stumbling over his words, does this really offer proof that he is a covert “crisis actor” promoting a national conspiracy, or does it show a child participating in a live TV interview whilst suffering from nerves, fatigue, or perhaps both?

Hogg, like many other students from Stoneman Douglas High School, has given many, many interviews where he has had to recount the events of the tragic shooting, and as such most likely has developed some manner of script, perhaps an inner script from memory, perhaps even a written script. During this interview, he stumbled through his words. And while conspiracy theorists are willing to submit that fact to “prove” their conspiracy-driven narrative, it doesn’t prove anything other than a child stumbled through his words during a live TV interview.

In this case, since the conspiracy theorist’s conclusion has been offered without evidence, it can be dismissed without evidence, too.

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It is, of course, tragic that we are living in a world where children who survived a horrific mass shooting in their own school can be accused by adults, supposedly grown up humans, of being “actors” being paid to disseminate an agenda. Perhaps the only silver lining is that the majority of these sub-human cretins appear to have little influence outside of their small digital bubbles, where they waste most of their lives posting argumentative comments on conspiracy-driven YouTube videos.

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