WDBJ Virginia Shooting: Hoax Theories Debunked
Hoax truthers have simply taken obscure photos where we cannot actually see in to the roofed area and then made unsupported claims.
Did The Boyfriend Tweet Before The Shooting?
Whenever these kinds of events happen somebody always seems to find at least one social media posting that was supposedly made before the incident took place, implying a conspirator jumped the gun on their “script.” This makes little sense. Why on earth would anybody carrying out a black-op be dumb enough to post a message to the world before confirmation? And why would it happen on every single occasion truthers claim a false flag took place? Perhaps it really reflects their own repeated errors in judgement?
What we’re most likely witnessing is a combination of fake screenshots and people misunderstanding how timestamps work on social media.
On Twitter whatever time zone you are in is reflected in the time you see under the Tweet. When I view the boyfriend Chris Hurst’s Tweet it reads 2:34pm, which is London time (GMT). Eastern Time (the time zone of Virginia) is 5 hours behind, so it was posted at 9:34am, almost 3 hours after the shooting, which took place at around 6:46am Eastern.
This doesn’t mean the Tweet was posted some 12 minutes earlier as suggested. It means whoever viewed the Tweet and took the screenshot was in a different timezone.
The West Coast (California etc) is 3 hours behind the East Coast on Pacific Time (PDT). At 9:34am ET any State on PDT would be at 6:34am.
So assuming the image isn’t just a photoshop, whoever screencapped it was simply on the other side of the country!
Was The Incident Really Live?
The shooting was broadcast live on local Roanoke, Virginia news show, WDBJ 7. This is evidenced by the 6:46am timestamp of the live feed. The station’s current graphics setup with the ticker and logos etc, always has the timestamp on the right hand side.
We see it during the broadcast and when it cuts back to studio:
From the image of the shooter:
The day after:
On the online feed today:
And back in June:
The time is
always on the right.
Some unscrupulous truther called
The Black Child has cropped an image of the shooter from a DVR recorded version of the broadcast and used the left hand side start time of the show, to claim the footage was really filmed at 6am. We know he’s being disingenuous because he doesn’t show the full screen, where we would see the live feed time on the right hand side where it’s always located.
If the conspirators were going to pre-record the shooting, wouldn’t they do it well in advance to ensure everything was perfect, not just 46 minutes before it would be shown live?
Is There A Third Video Showing A Different Sequence?
Simply put NO! A rumor has been spread around social media and forums with the claim that “I saw” or “people are saying” that there was a third video which showed Adam Ward getting shot first, proving that there were multiple takes and it was staged. The trouble is not one person can produce this video. In the age of the internet this is impossible. Somebody somewhere would have it on their computer if it really existed. So I’m going to make an offer.
The first person to show me said video gets $100 straight to their Paypal. I’m waiting …
Was A BBC News Crew Scared Off By Police?
The UK Independent reports that:
Two BBC journalists who filmed the scene where the Virginia shooting suspect crashed and shot himself say they were threatened by state police.
White House reporter Tara McKelvey and video-journalist Franz Strasser were among the first on the scene where the manhunt for the alleged WDBJ gunman Vester Flanagan came to an end, after they saw “sirens blaring” on I-66 West.
But on a day when the ability of journalists to do their jobs unhindered was a particularly heightened issue, officers with Virginia State Police reportedly told the reporters to delete their footage or risk having their camera and car taken away.
Unfortunately it is not out of the ordinary for US police officers to be heavy handed over the filming of crime scenes, or even filming in general. Some of the same hoax truthers will have campaigned online about this issue many times (I’ve experienced anti-film police first hand myself in the UK). So that in and of itself is not particularly odd. Small fry cops, a sensitive crime scene, a stressful situation – some might even be sympathetic towards the police.
Of course it’s also not beyond the realm to imagine a scenario where it was the trigger happy cops who opened fire on black man Flanagan, and in an attempt not to further stoke racial tensions they kept reporters out and called it a suicide.
Obviously I have no evidence for this theory and I’m not sure whether the coroner would set the situation straight. But whatever went on, there’s not really anything to suggest there was a wider conspiracy at play, especially when considering everything else covered in this article.
Are The Father and Boyfriend Crisis Actors?
This is when hoax truthers really begin to show themselves as horrible human beings. They will pick on anything they perceive as abnormal behaviour from the victim’s family and friends and use it to claim they are “terrible actors” and are just in on the conspiracy. “Why are they not crying” at this precise moment? “How can they smile?” or “why did the father stammer?” It really is a demented little game of nitpicking, with no logical basis.
If you have ever lost a loved one you will know that there are intermittent periods of extreme emotion. It’s not physically possible to literally be balling your eyes out 24/7. Likewise sometimes people get very numb and it doesn’t hit them for days. Humans are complex.
To accurately assess Parker’s father and boyfriend’s emotional response (which is really none of our business) we’d have to be with them the whole time. And any sane person who has seen their appearances will recognize that they
do show sadness and emotion for their loss, they also show happiness when recalling happy memories as many people in mourning will do – it’s a coping mechanism. But all of this just isn’t good enough for the truthers, who are all apparently experts in body language. Perhaps what they’re really looking for is what they see in Hollywood movies. Well as much as they want this to be a movie, it’s not, it’s real life.
To demonstrate how disingenuous this concept is, I have made another image focussing on the points where Chris Hurst
does show sadness.
This concept of “acting” is also problematic. Everybody who is tasked with being in front of a camera is acting to some degree, whether just out of stage fright, or because they’re aware of the questions that will be asked. There will always be prepping and mental rehearsing, and maybe this comes through in the footage, but that doesn’t for one minute mean they are conspirators in a hoax. Furthermore let’s not forget that Hurst also works at the same news station, so he is going to be a bit more composed and professional than others might be in the same situation.
Does Hurst come across as a bit of a narcissist with all of his media appearances? Perhaps, but narcissism isn’t a crime. And if this was some complex Government conspiracy, by now his handlers would have probably told him to quiet down a bit. In that sense his love of the cameras may be more of a sign that he
isn’t a conspirator.
One reason father Andy Parker might appear to be so comfortable in front of the camera, is that he actually was a small time actor for about 6 years in the late 70s early 80s. Now this may come as a massive shock to the hoax truthers, but former actors’ children can be shot dead just like any other peoples’ children.
If this was a staged event, why would they use somebody with a clear acting history that can be found with a Google search? So the truthers can discover the not so secret secret and lose their shit?
It’s not like he’s trying to hide the fact. It’s on his
public profiles.
The “crisis actor” concept (actors paid to stage events) is as ridiculous now as it ever was. Not one of these actors has ever been uncovered! Sure there are a lot of mentally deranged Youtube videos of truthers taking images of different people and claiming they are the same person acting in multiple events (which would be an absolutely stupid thing for the conspirators to do), but actual tangible evidence simply does not back this idea up. So Andy Parker being and actor when he was younger is simply evidence that he was an actor when he was younger. So what?
A lot has also been made about the pair calling for gun control, as if family members of shooting victims have never called for gun control before. A large portion of the country call for gun control after every high profile shooting. It’s a popular opinion right now. If it’s something they feel passionate about, why wouldn’t they push it on TV?
Was Chris Hurst Really Alison Parker’s Boyfriend
One of the sillier theories out there claims that Chris Hurst was never really Alison Parker’s boyfriend and that he was simply playing the role as part of the conspiracy. The so called evidence for this is a lack of social media images of the two together, while there seems to be many images of Parker and her ex-boyfriend on one of his accounts. Other random claims are that Hurst is a homosexual “gay boy,” is too ugly to have ever been dating Parker, and must be an actor because he still uses a physical photo album in 2015.
These ideas have mostly been pushed by an obnoxious Youtuber called
Peekay22.
Sadly for some hoax truthers that’s all the “evidence” they need – a bizarre idea that quantity of public photos has any baring on somebody’s personal relationship, blatant homophobia, and an irrational suspicion of photos that have been developed the traditional way. This is the
mentality we’re dealing with!
Back in the real world it’s perfectly normal for relationships to end and new ones to start. It’s also perfectly normal for some couples to be very open about their love and others not to be. It’s also perfectly normal to develop or print photos as a keepsake. My sister does it. Is she a crisis actor?
… Hang I thought there was a lack of photos of them together? For whatever reason the
photo album doesn’t count, and neither do these:
If Hurst and Parker were never together don’t you think at least one person they know would have piped up by now? And come to think of it, if this was staged why the hell would she need somebody to play her boyfriend? Some of these illogical theories are getting laughably absurd.
The nail in the coffin is that Parker’s ex-boyfriend himself has spoken out in anger at
Peekay22’s ridiculous theory. Here is a snippet of their conversation.
**Image removed. Profanity in facebook comments**
What a hate-filled cretin he is.
Has The Truth Movement Jumped The Shark? YES!
The so called “truthers” haven’t helped themselves in recent years. In a society where most people think they’re crazy anyway, a large portion of them have collectively decided that every single terrorist attack, mass shooting, and high profile instance of politically or ideologically driven violence … isn’t real.
No deaths, the victims simply acting out their injuries as “crisis actors” (a made up profession), and the alleged culprits are being set-up to push different government/new world order/illuminati agendas. From Sandy Hook, to the
Boston Bombings, to this week’s shocking footage – according to them none of it really happened.
They’ve moved away from more considered and detailed research in to black operations and traditional false flag attacks, to running around like headless chickens calling anything and everything reported by the mainstream media fake. In the process any counter-culture “truth movement” that did exist over the past decade has fallen so far off the deep end that even self professed conspiracy theorists like me want nothing to do with their insanity.
JUST STOP IT!
