Are the Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton shooters the same person? Fact Check
Conspiracy theories online claim that each of the shooters from the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting, the El Paso shooting and the Dayton Ohio shooting are in fact the same person.
FALSE
This bizarre and nonsensical theory spans from the broader “crisis actor” conspiracy theory which reasons that most – if not all – mass shootings are staged by the government or “deep state” and that those who find themselves caught up in such shootings – whether victims, their families, first responders or eye witnesses – are actually actors employed to play a part.
If that wasn’t illogical enough, the theories often go on to claim that the same actors are employed to play different roles in different shootings. And as such, we have this ridiculous claim that the same person was the shooter in all three shootings in three different states within a week.
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The evidence to back-up this irrational claim appears to simply claim that the three man all look alike, such as the graphic below which lines up cherry-picked images of the three perpetrators next to each other.
However this claim is not only irrational, it’s easily dismissed. While debunking a claim like this is largely pointless (if one will believe such an irrational claim with so little evidence, facts and logic are unlikely to get in the way of such a belief) we can still point out the following facts…
– The most glaring problem with the above graphic is that the photo on the right, which claims to show the Dayton Ohio shooter, doesn’t show the Dayton Ohio shooter. It is possible that the person in the right photo was someone who was initially misidentified as the shooter because he shared the same name, though we cannot confirm that at the time of writing.
– The three man don’t look particularly similar when we line up different (and the correct) photos of each person, like we’ve done here.
– And of course the most salient fact most likely ignored or dismissed by conspiracy theorists is that each man has been identified by authorities. The Gilroy Garlic festival shooter has been identified as Santino William Legan, 19 years. The El Paso shooter was identified as Patrick Crusius 21 years. And the Dayton Ohio shooter was identified as Connor Betts, 24 years of age. Legan killed himself after being shot by police a week before the El Paso shooting. In turn, the El Paso shooter was detained by police before the Dayton shooting took place. As such, the shooter cannot be the same person.
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Other arguments on the Internet claim that photos of Patrick Crusius show different men, because different photos of him don’t appear to show the same person. However this argument still spans from the same “crisis actor” fallacy. Just because a photo of two people who look familiar can still be different people, equally so photos that show two people who (upon a cursory glance) look different to each other can still show the same person. Especially if the person in the photo isn’t someone that the viewer knows and is already familiar with.
In the case of Crusius, his photos show him with a different haircut, with and without facial hair and with and without glasses. But a closer look does reveal that the person in the photo is the same person.
Ultimately, the claim that the shooters in these 3 mass shootings are the same person is just another irrational claim by fringe conspiracy theorists.
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