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Parkland survivor says dad has turned to ‘QAnon conspiracies,’ thinks massacre was staged

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An anonymous survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting says their father is convinced it was staged and has turned to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

A Reddit user, who goes by the name of “Bill”, recently posted on the r/QAnonCasualties subreddit that they are a survivor of the shooting and that their dad believes it was staged and the QAnon conspiracy theory has “consumed his life.” On Monday, Vice spoke with Bill and confirmed their identity as a survivor. Bill spoke on the condition that he was anonymous and only referred to as Bill, which isn’t their real name.

“Back in January he saw the video of Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing David Hogg ([another] student) about the shooting being a false-flag operation, and while my dad was already into Q, he’d never gone down that particular rabbit hole and now he’s convinced everything was a hoax and it breaks my f—ing heart,” the Reddit post said.

Bill also said that their father believes that he helped stage it. “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.” Bill told Vice that their final semester at the school was already “difficult enough with Feb. 14 marking 3 years since the shooting,” but the fact that “my dad thinks the absolute hell we went through, where nine of the victims were in our class, is a hoax” has made it worse.

He also explained that he has not shared this with his classmates, as it is not a “pain I want to put on them.” The poster says their father’s actions triggered the return of survivor’s guilt, something they worked hard to overcome. “I can’t take more of him berating me and purposely trying to trigger me to see if my PTSD is real or not. He’s seen me break down and cry my eyes out multiple times which I never ever did before. Sometimes I wonder if he’s hit his head or had a f–king stroke because I almost can’t believe it’s the same person. What the f–k is QAnon doing to people??”

Bill says they have no idea how to deal with the situation, but they found the r/QAnonCasualties helpful. The poster finished their post, saying they had attempted to appeal to his emotions. “I try to remind him to look back at the texts I sent when I was 100% sure the shooter was about to enter our classroom,” the person wrote. “I ask him to look me in the eyes and still argue I’m able to fake what I wrote in those messages, but no luck.”

ARTICLE: JACOB ZUBY

MANAGING EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE
PHOTO CREDITS: NEW YORK POST

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