Conspiracy theories create real danger for Sandy Hook parent, D.C. pizzeria
A few days after a gunman fired his weapon in a popular D.C. pizzeria because he wanted to investigate an online conspiracy theory, a Florida woman is facing charges for making death threats against a parent whose child died in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
The woman believes the shooting was a hoax, according to law enforcement officials.
Fake news has become a major buzzword since the Nov. 8 election with reports that intentionally untrue or misleading headlines on Facebook generated more traffic than legitimate news stories.
Now the fake news and conspiracy theories that lived in some corners of the internet are leading to real-life danger.
In Florida, 57-year-old Lucy Richards has been indicted on four felony counts of transmitting threats, according to The Associated Press. According to authorities, she made the threats in January 2016 against a parent of one of the 20 first-graders killed in the Dec. 14, 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The unidentified parent lives in Palm Beach County.
Six educators also died in the attack. The gunman shot himself and also killed his mother on that day.
The threats included messages like “you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon” and “LOOK BEHIND YOU IT IS DEATH.”
There are some people who believe the shooting was a hoax or conspiracy, including InfoWars radio host Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist who has long questioned what happened.
“There has been a cover-up of whatever did happen there. All I know is the official story of Sandy Hook has more holes in it than Swiss cheese,” Jones said on Nov. 18.
In Washington, D.C., 28-year-old North Carolina resident Edgar Maddison Welch was arrested after bringing a gun to Comet Ping Pong and firing at least one shot. He was there, police said, to investigate an online conspiracy theory that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and members of her campaign ran a child-trafficking ring out of the restaurant.
The New York Times talked with Welch on Wednesday. “The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” he told the paper. Welch also told the Times “he did not like the term fake news, believing it was meant to diminish stories outside the mainstream media, which he does not completely trust.”
The owners of the pizzeria have been harassed through much of the fall despite no evidence to corroborate the online stories. The proliferation of fake news — and people’s willingness to act on it — has raised concerns from many, including the White House and social media companies like Facebook.
This story was originally published December 7, 2016 at 3:21 PM with the headline "Conspiracy theories create real danger for Sandy Hook parent, D.C. pizzeria."