A week following the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a conspiracy theory has emerged citing the survivor students appearing on news channels and interviews are not real students, but rather actors.
The biggest target was student David Hogg, who released videos of himself interviewing fellow students while they hid in classrooms after shooter Nikolas Cruz opened fire.
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“I want to show these people exactly what’s going on when these children are facing bullets flying through classrooms and students are dying trying to get an education,” Hogg told CNN on Thursday while explaining why he chose to interview students. “That’s not okay, and that’s not acceptable and we need to fix that.”
But as the theory that he was in fact a “crisis actor” trying to promote anti-gun legislation spread in pockets of social media and message boards, TMZ released a video debunking the entire theory. Hogg’s name and photo are in the 2017 Marjory Stoneman Douglas Yearbook, proving he’s an active student.
The photo shows him as a junior in the 2016-17 school year, the same year Cruz attended the school before being expelled.
Hogg spoke out on the theory to Buzzfeed on Wednesday.
“I just think it’s a testament to the sick immaturity and broken state of our government when these people feel the need to pedal conspiracy theories about people that were in a school shooting where 17 people died and it just makes me sick,” he said. “It’s immature, rude, and inhuman for these people to destroy the people trying to prevent the death of the future of America because they won’t.”
“I have to keep going,” he said in a separate interview with CBS Los Angeles. “I witnessed this event. I am not fed any lines.”
Hogg isn’t the only one who has been called out by conspiracy theorists. Fellow student Rachel Catania was one of the many students who traveled to Florida’s state capitol of Tallahassee to speak to lawmakers about gun control, but was also accused of being an actress attempting to push an agenda.
She spoke out against the conspiracy on CNN on Wednesday.
“No, not at all. I’m not getting paid for this,” Catania replied. “I want to come out here on behalf of my city and my town and just spread the message on behalf of those who can’t. And I’m going to make sure that those 17 innocent people who had their lives taken from them did not die for no reason.”
