An anonymous survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting says his own father believes the incident was a hoax.
The 18-year-old former student of the school spoke with Vice in a report released on Monday about how his father came to believe the massacre was a hoax after researching QAnon conspiracy theories online.
“It started a couple months into the pandemic with the whole anti-lockdown protests,” the anonymous student only identified under the alias of “Bill,” told 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.”
At that time, the student’s father witnessed Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing a Parkland shooting survivor, and his ideas that the shooting was a fake began to solidify from there.
The student detailed on Reddit: “He’ll say stuff like this straight to my face whenever he’s drinking: ‘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.”
The Parkland shooting claimed the lives of 17 people, 14 of whom were students and three of whom were staff members.
As of recently, many have claimed that the shooting was a hoax, even with there being plenty of evidence. Many of those people believe in QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory that claims Trump is being pursued by a secret network of pedophiles.
Reports say the student now finds himself in a situation he doesn’t want to be in, despite his father’s support before he came to believe the shooting was a hoax. He claims that his mother does not stand up to his father, and that he plans to leave next month.
