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In keeping with the partisan blame game that typically ensues after mass shootings in the United States, the murders of seventeen people at Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida on 14 February 2018 prompted false and conflicting assertions about the motives and beliefs of the perpetrator. It was inaccurately claimed, for example, that the confessed shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, is known to be a registered Democrat; that he was photographed wearing a t-shirt allegedly tying him to the anti-fascist group antifa; that he is an undocumented immigrant and DACA recipient (or Dreamer); and that there is evidence proving he is connected to an Islamic terrorist group. It was also asserted — in this instance accurately — that an Instagram account linked to Cruz featured an avatar that included a hat bearing the slogan MAGA (Make America Great Again, a catchphrase used by President Trump and his supporters). The day after the school attack, the Anti-Defamation League and mainstream news outlets including ABC News, The Daily Beast, and Associated Press reported that a leader of a white supremacist paramilitary group called Republic of Florida (ROF) claimed Cruz as a member and said he had attended their training sessions. According to the ADL's initial report: The Daily Beast said Jereb told them the same thing, even when pressed to respond to a law enforcement official's statement that the allegation had not been confirmed: He also confirmed to the Associated Press that Cruz was a member of Republic of Florida, although, Jereb said, the accused shooter acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he’s solely responsible for what he just did. But later that same day, the Leon County Sheriff's Office announced that they had found no known ties between the ROF, Jordan Jereb or the Broward shooter. Jereb appeared to walk back his previous statements in social media posts, CBS News reported: By 16 February, it was clear that the ADL and the media had either been duped or had jumped the gun. Politico ran an article detailing how trolls and white nationalists conspired in the immediate aftermath of the shooting to spread disinformation about Nikolas Cruz: It's unclear when the trolls settled on the bogus Jereb/ROF narrative, Politico reporter Shawn Musgrave wrote, but it quickly developed into a coordinated effort involving participants on 4Chan, Gab, The Right Stuff (a neo-Nazi forum), Instagram, and Discord (a chat app popular with white nationalists). The ADL updated its report on 16 February 2018 to note that according to an alt-right message board, the claim of a connection between Cruz and ROF was an elaborate attempt to troll a network news reporter and other media outlets, and noted that law enforcement officials had established no such link. (We reached out to ROF and requested a definitive statement regarding Cruz's alleged membership, but did not receive a reply.) Hate Speech Even as the Republic of Florida narrative evaporated, however, other evidence came to light indicating that Cruz was known to have espoused racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic views — as well as an interest in guns and violence — prior to the Florida shootings. CNN reported that beginning in August 2017, Cruz participated in a private Instagram chat group in which he felt free to vent his hatred of minority groups: Cruz also participated in discussions about firearms and posted at least one video of himself firing his legally-purchased AR-15 rifle. In one chat he said, I think I am going to kill people, though he later claimed to be joking. CNN said one member of the group told reporters that Cruz seemed nice but also had some mental issues. All (I know) is that he likes guns and really hates liberals. (In addition, CBS News reported on 27 February that a federal law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the investigation had revealed that swastikas were found on ammunition magazines left by Cruz at the crime scene.) Although CNN reported that nothing in the transcripts indicated that members of the chat group belonged to white nationalist or white supremacist organizations, if his statements were reported accurately, Cruz openly shares the views of people who do belong to them — as do, presumably, some of the trolls who fed disinformation to the media. That they were successful is regrettable, but easier to stomach than the realization that this was their chosen response to the mass murder of seventeen innocent people.
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