US Police: Fake news story led man to shoot inside pizza shop

[webfact]

Police: Fake news story led man to shoot inside pizza shop 

 

WASHINGTON (AP)  A man who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place fired an assault rifle inside the Washington, D.C., restaurant on Sunday injuring no one, police and news reports said.

 

Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Aquita Brown said police received a call Sunday afternoon about a male with a weapon on Connecticut Avenue, in an affluent neighborhood of the nation's capital.

 

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked into the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed a firearm in the direction of a restaurant employee, the Washington Post (http://wapo.st/2gERkPC) reported.

 

The employee was able to flee and notify police. Welch then fired the gun into the floor.

 

Police responded and arrested Welch without incident. They recovered an "assault rifle," Brown said. Welch was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

 

Two firearms were recovered inside the restaurant and an additional weapon was recovered from the suspect's vehicle, police said in a statement on Sunday evening.

 

The Comet Ping Pong is in a neighborhood of well-tended private homes and apartment buildings on leafy streets that lead to a mix of shops, restaurants and the Politics and Prose book store. The restaurant gained notoriety during the presidential campaign after fake news stories stated that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief ran a child sex ring out of the restaurant, The New York Times and other news organizations have reported.

 

Welch told police he'd come to the restaurant to "self-investigate" the fictitious online conspiracy theory that spread online during Clinton's run for the White House, the police statement said.

 

The Comet, its owner, staff and nearby businesses were caught up in an onslaught of conspiracy theories and fake news during the often contentious presidential campaign and were the victims social media attacks and death threats, the Post reported.

 

James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong, released a statement late Sunday night that denied what he called the "malicious and utterly false accusations" and said the company hoped to resume normal operations within a few days.

 

"I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away," Alefantis said in the statement.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-12-05

[sujoop]

'So how did this fake story take hold amongst alt-right Trump supporters and other Hillary Clinton opponents?'

'Let's start with the facts.'

"They ignore basic truths," Alefantis tells BBC Trending.
For instance, the conspiracy supposedly is run out of the restaurant's basement.
"We don't even have a basement."
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-38156985
 

Not that actual facts puts off your avg Trump supporter....

[sujoop]

Donald Trump’s son Eric and his then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, even tweeted links to one of Horner’s faux-articles. His stories have also appeared as news on Google.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/?utm_term=.bae80f3c20e5
 

A fake news story was even tweeted by General Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser. In the 3 November tweet he linked to a discredited story that suggested Hillary Clinton and her “crew” were involved in child abuse and added the comment “U decide.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/05/gunman-detained-at-comet-pizza-restaurant-was-self-investigating-fake-news-reports
 

'Honestly, people are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore — I mean, that’s how Trump got elected. He just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything, and when the things he said turned out not to be true, people didn’t care because they’d already accepted it. It’s real scary. I’ve never seen anything like it.'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/?utm_term=.e4ffc6040c56

[DM07]

Be prepared for more of this!


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[GinBoy2]

I have no idea how we get around this, but we have certainly entered a strange era.

 

The internet is a bit like a teenager waking up to discover they have suddenly developed  new 'super hero powers'.

 

Marvelous, powerful, yet similarly destructive until you learn how to use them.

 

The internet has unleashed information access few of us could ever have imagined two decades ago, but what it has done is allowed people to gather into information silo's, only listening, talking to others who share their views, the much talked about ideas echo chamber

 

This creates these weird worlds of alternate reality, where fact and truth hardly matter, since if you all talk about the same stuff, and you hear it enough, the fantasy becomes the fact, it is the truth!

 

So how that teenager with the new super powers learns to harness and use them, to benefit the world, or destroy it...well that story is yet to be written!

[bendejo]

And then there is the Wikileaks email connection, from whence some Great Mind concocted  this silliness, gotta love this stuff.  I suspect that Assange is expecting a pardon (or something to that effect) from the future president, but I think he'll get caught in someone else's net as soon as he steps onto the street.  Loathsome SOB.

 

And then there was the nut who assaulted a women's clinic because he heard the screams of the aborted fetuses, and he was going in there to rescue them.

 

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by bendejo

[nahkit]

I'm not a fan of the American way of suing people at every opportunity but I really do hope that the restaurant owners go after the people that posted these lies and hit them hard where it hurts - right in their pockets.

[charmonman]

I am continuously correcting right wing/ Trump supporting acquaintances on various fake news stories they tell me, most of them just a little less crazy than this one. Very frustrating. People need to be a little more skeptical and learn that FOX news is not a real news network.

 

[GinBoy2]

12 minutes ago, charmonman said:

I am continuously correcting right wing/ Trump supporting acquaintances on various fake news stories they tell me, most of them just a little less crazy than this one. Very frustrating. People need to be a little more skeptical and learn that FOX news is not a real news network.

 

Fox News isn't the problem.

 

Fox is biased and what I call entertainment news, but that's a world away from fake news.

 

Even Breitbart for it's craziness, tends generally to just put extreme crazy spin on somewhat actual facts.

 

For the true wingnuts there is a whole alternate reality world of conspiracy theory, total fake news sites that satisfy their need to believe the notion that their is some master world conspiracy out to get them

Edited December 6, 2016 by GinBoy2

[Berkshire]

14 hours ago, sujoop said:

Donald Trump’s son Eric and his then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, even tweeted links to one of Horner’s faux-articles. His stories have also appeared as news on Google.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/?utm_term=.bae80f3c20e5
 

A fake news story was even tweeted by General Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser. In the 3 November tweet he linked to a discredited story that suggested Hillary Clinton and her “crew” were involved in child abuse and added the comment “U decide.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/05/gunman-detained-at-comet-pizza-restaurant-was-self-investigating-fake-news-reports
 

'Honestly, people are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore — I mean, that’s how Trump got elected. He just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything, and when the things he said turned out not to be true, people didn’t care because they’d already accepted it. It’s real scary. I’ve never seen anything like it.'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/?utm_term=.e4ffc6040c56

 

All so crazy, yet true.  We've had people on this TV forum who say they never read news from traditional news outlets (aka, real factual news) but only rely on news from dubious sources (read fake news).  Yes, people are definitely dumber.   

[Peterw42]

28 minutes ago, charmonman said:

I am continuously correcting right wing/ Trump supporting acquaintances on various fake news stories they tell me, most of them just a little less crazy than this one. Very frustrating. People need to be a little more skeptical and learn that FOX news is not a real news network.

 

 

Fox news is very clever as they dont ever tell the fake story, they quote a 3rd party that says the fake news.

 

"coming up next, reports that Hilary eats live babies."

 

Banner on the bottom of the screen says "Hilary live baby eating scandal"

 

10 minutes later they interview a truck driver from hicksville USA, who thinks Hilary eats live babies.

 

They report anything, via a 3rd person.

[soalbundy]

I thought that if you were mentally unstable you couldn't buy a gun.

[Grubster]

4 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

Fox News isn't the problem.

 

Fox is biased and what I call entertainment news, but that's a world away from fake news.

 

Even Breitbart for it's craziness, tends generally to just put extreme crazy spin on somewhat actual facts.

 

For the true wingnuts there is a whole alternate reality world of conspiracy theory, total fake news sites that satisfy their need to believe the notion that their is some master world conspiracy out to get them

Fox news is the biggest and most popular far right wing outlet in the US, and nearly all of their stories are full of outright lies. They should not be allowed to be called a news broadcaster.  They didn't support Trump much as many of his promises flew in the face of their ideology.  They constantly made up lies about Obama, and both Clintons. They loved the war in Iraq and reported it like cheerleaders in the sixth grade.

                       You should hear all the far right wing radio stations in the US, they leave me in stitches that anybody could be dumb enough to believe the crap they spew out.

[mike324]

Whats worrying is that many Trump supporters think that the EPA, DOE, IRS are bogus as well.

[Pakboong]

Perhaps we have reached that point where plausibility has trumped source. I for one, hope so.

[chilli42]

We have reached a point where journalism is dead.  The traditional TV and print media are in route as their adv revenue drops in the face of internet.  They are desperate to get their viewer/reader numbers up to save profits.  They have turned from journalism to entertainment to achieve this.  The internet itself has no regulations regarding what they can or can not say and social media enables anyone with an axe to grind to be heard.  You would have to be barking mad to believe any of the news outlets.  Best that can be done is to read broadly and sea your own conclusions.

[jchfriis]

4 hours ago, chilli42 said:

We have reached a point where journalism is dead.  The traditional TV and print media are in route as their adv revenue drops in the face of internet.  They are desperate to get their viewer/reader numbers up to save profits.  They have turned from journalism to entertainment to achieve this.  The internet itself has no regulations regarding what they can or can not say and social media enables anyone with an axe to grind to be heard.  You would have to be barking mad to believe any of the news outlets.  Best that can be done is to read broadly and sea your own conclusions.

 

Right on. The time they stopped broadcasting Newscast and started making News Shows was the start of the decline, where today they don't let the truth get in the way of a "good" story.

[FitnessHealthTravel]

11 hours ago, Berkshire said:

 

All so crazy, yet true.  We've had people on this TV forum who say they never read news from traditional news outlets (aka, real factual news) but only rely on news from dubious sources (read fake news).  Yes, people are definitely dumber.   

"traditional news outlets" you mean the ones who got everything wrong about Trump, told Hillary supporters to believe she had it in the bag.  The ones that now continue to bias everything about Trump on a daily basis. Not sure in the digital age they even have the leverage they think they have...obviously. 

[Berkshire]

50 minutes ago, FitnessHealthTravel said:

"traditional news outlets" you mean the ones who got everything wrong about Trump, told Hillary supporters to believe she had it in the bag.  The ones that now continue to bias everything about Trump on a daily basis. Not sure in the digital age they even have the leverage they think they have...obviously. 

 

There wasn't any news outlet out there that believed Trump would win.  Only difference is some of the far right ones just made up fake news to sway the election.  As for the ones "continuing to be bias against Trump," it's obvious that they're mostly just reporting what the man says.  Trump better get used to it. 

[Mitker]

trash politics oozing into unstable brains