Parkland Survivor’s QAnon Dad Believes Massacre Was a Hoax, Berates Him for ‘Being Part of It’

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida said his father now thinks the massacre was a hoax.

The survivor of the 2018 shooting, who is now 18 years old, spoke to Vice after writing in a Reddit post that his father came to believe that shooting was a hoax after taking an interest in the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Vice did not disclose the identity of the survivor, who the outlet identified as Bill, and was “part of the final graduating class of survivors of the 2018 shooting” that killed 14 students and three school staff.

“I think my dad has gone fucking insane,” he wrote in the Reddit post. “It’s going way too far and I have trouble processing the last 5 months. He’s always been very conservative, but now QAnon has consumed his life to the point where it’s tearing our family apart along with my mental health.”

The survivor explained that in January his father watched a video of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) harassing David Hogg, and came to believe the conspiracy theory that the shooting was a hoax, carried out by “​​a radical commie actor,” in order to push gun control.

“It started a couple months into the pandemic with the whole anti-lockdown protests,” Bill explained to Vice. “His feelings were so strong it turned into facts for him. So if he didn’t like having to wear masks it wouldn’t matter what doctors or scientists said. Anything that contradicted his feelings was wrong. So he turned to the internet to find like-minded people which led him to QAnon.”

Bill said that when his father is drunk he accuses him of being a part of the hoax: “You’re a real piece of work to be able to sit here and act like nothing ever happened if it wasn’t a hoax. Shame on you for being part of it and putting your family through it too.”

Read the full interview here.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!