'False flag' conspiracy theories inundate social media after Iowa shooting
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on January 8, 2024 at 18:49
- 5 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"Not even 24 hours after the Epstein court document was released we have multiple victims who were shot at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa," says a January 4, 2024 post on X, formerly Twitter, from an account called "Shadow of Ezra," which has previously promoted child sex trafficking theories related to the QAnon conspiracy movement.
"Make no mistake this is a false flag to distract the media from discussing anything in relation to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients. As more names will be released in the coming days we expect more serious distractions and false flags. All assets have been deployed."
The post racked up tens of thousands of interactions -- outperforming some posts from US media outlets covering the shooting in Perry, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) from the state capital of Des Moines.
Similar allegations spread across X -- where content moderation has faltered since billionaire Elon Musk purchased the platform in October 2022 -- and other platforms, such as Instagram.
An 11-year-old student was killed and seven other people injured January 4, 2024 at Perry High School in an early-morning shooting. Authorities identified the gunman as 17-year-old Dylan Butler, who they said died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound (archived here).
One day prior, a New York judge began to unseal documents with names of Epstein associates, a move that was highly anticipated in conspiratorial internet circles.
But there is no evidence the Iowa shooting was staged to distract from filings related to the disgraced American financier, who died by suicide in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
The hundreds of pages of depositions and statements came as part of a defamation proceeding between Epstein's former mistress Ghislaine Maxwell, who in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and a plaintiff against the duo, Virginia Giuffre.
The media widely covered the disclosure, which did not provide a bombshell list of sex traffickers some supporters of QAnon and other conspiracy theories had expected.
Iowa shooting
Armed with a handgun and shotgun, Butler opened fire inside Perry High School around 7:30 am on January 4. He reportedly posted a photo of himself on TikTok beforehand.
The attack triggered a major police response that AFP and other news organizations documented.
The sixth-grader who died was likely in the high school for a breakfast program, said Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. He was later identified as Ahmir Jolliff, 11.
Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger was among those wounded, according to the Iowa Department of Public Safety and statements from sources such as the Easton Valley Community School District, where Marburger attended school (archived here and here)
Claire Marburger, identified by the Des Moines Register and other media as the principal's daughter, posted on Facebook January 4 that her father had been through surgery and was in stable condition (archived here and here).
Another parent identified in reports as Bobbi Bushbaum posted on Facebook that her son, Corey, was shot nine times (archived here).
Numerous other witnesses and parents described the experience to local and national news outlets such as KCCI, a CBS affiliate station, and The New York Times (archived here and here).
High school student Ava Augustus, for example, told NBC News that she hid in a classroom during the shooting. She ran out after authorities told her the incident was over and recalled seeing "glass everywhere, blood on the floor" (archived here).
"I get to my car and they're taking a girl out of the auditorium who had been shot in her leg," she said through tears.
Mourners gathered at various community vigils the night of the shooting, and Perry schools closed for several days (archived here).
'Pattern' of false flag theories
There is no evidence the Iowa shooting was a "false flag," an act aimed at disguising the perpetrator and redirecting blame or attention to another party.
Disinformers have long attempted to brand mass shootings -- such as the 2022 massacre in Uvalde, Texas and the 2018 attack in Parkland, Florida -- as false flag operations orchestrated to draw support for gun control measures.
"They follow a mass shooting, which has become a pattern after Sandy Hook," said Mark Fenster, a University of Florida law professor and conspiracy theory expert, in a January 5, 2024 email referencing the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 20 students and six staff members at an elementary school.
InfoWars founder Alex Jones falsely claimed the Sandy Hook attack was a hoax. A Connecticut jury in October 2023 ordered Jones to pay victims' families $965 million in compensatory damages, and a judge later tacked on another $473 million in punitive damages.
"The 'false flag' mass shooting issue arose after Sandy Hook because it was then seemingly possible that the feds would enact gun control legislation in response. This just seems like a carryover," Fenster said of the Iowa claims.
AFP has fact-checked disinformation about other mass shootings here, here and here.
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