March For Our Lives demonstration planned several months ago? Fact Check
Rumours online have surfaced that claim the March For Our Lives demonstration on March 24th in Washington DC in response to the February 14th shooting at Marjory Douglas High School had been planned “several months” before it (and the shooting) took place, hence proving a conspiracy.
As with most mass shootings in the United States, bizarre conspiracies often spread across the Internet making wild accusations, including that the shootings didn’t really happen and that survivors are really actors. We debunk many such conspiracies here.
Another theory is now spreading that claims the March For Our Lives demonstration, which was in response to the February 14th shooting in Florida, had actually been planned for “several months”. Since the demonstration took place a little over a month after the shooting, this would “prove” that the shooting was fake or staged.
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This particular conspiracy seems to hinge on an email sent from an officer at the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC, which was in response to a query about the permit application for the March For Our Lives demonstration. (Demonstrations of over 25 people need a permit from the relevant jurisdiction.) In that email, an officer named Scott Earhardt had written that the permit application for the demonstration had been received “several months prior to the actual event”.
The email can be seen below –
Good morning,
In reference to your inquiry concerning the March For Our Lives Demonstration, here in the District of Columbia on March 24, 2018. MPD received a permit application several months prior to the actual event, and there was several months of planning for this large event.
If your are requesting additional information reference this event, please follow the below steps to file your Freedom of Information Act request:
If your have any additional question sor concerns, please feel free in contacting me directly.
Officer Scott C. Earhardt, Badge No. 2372
It appears many conspiracy theorists have been offering this email as “evidence” that the high school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas was staged since the subsequent demonstration had been in the planning several months before the shooting even took place.
However, a search online soon reveals the actual permit application for the demonstration, on the National Park Service website. The date of the application for the demonstration is clearly stated as February 20th 2018, a week after the shooting took place and just over a month before the demonstration took place.
As such, no, the application permit for the March For Our Lives demonstration was not filed “several months” before the shooting.
So what about Officer Scott Earhardt’s email? Well, either Officer Earhardt…
1. Had forgotten that he was part of a large scale national conspiracy to defraud the public, that involved staging a fake mass shooting in a high school, and as a result willingly revealed over email that the demonstration for a shooting was being planned several months before the shooting even took place, or…
2. He misspoke.
While conspiracy theorists hell bent on pushing their ridiculous notions to anyone willing to listen may prefer the first option, we’ll hedge our bets and go with the second option. We emailed Officer Earhardt asking for clarification on his email. He responded –
I misspoke, Our MPD permit for the March for Our Lives was issued March 13th, and not several months prior.
As such, claims that the March For Our Lives demonstration was planned several months before the shooting that inspired it are inaccurate, and based solely on a single person miscommunicating via email.
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