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  • 2018-02-15 (xsd:date)
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  • Did the Florida Shooter's Instagram Profile Picture Feature a 'MAGA' Hat? (en)
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  • In the aftermath of a 14 February 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida that left at least seventeen people dead, the Internet brimmed over with rumors and disinformation about suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz. Was he a Dreamer? No. A registered Democrat? No. Was he pictured in an antifa t-shirt? No. Was he photographed in a hat bearing President Trump's 2016 campaign slogan, MAGA (Make America Great Again)? The MAGA hat rumor was based on the profile picture of Instagram account NikolasCruzMakarov. The account has since been deleted (you can see an archived version here) but screenshots of the page have already traveled far and wide on social media: The images from this account were included in a number of articles from credible news sources. Still, some claimed that the nikolascruzmakarov account was a hoax, and that the suspected shooter's real account was actually located under cruz_nikolas (forgetting, apparently, that individuals can and often do open more than one account on social media.) Others asserted that the nikolascruzmakarov account was created after the shooting in order to frame the suspected shooter as a Trump supporter: Students who knew Cruz confirmed to the Miami Herald that the cruz_nikolas Instagram page was authentic; the web site Heavy.com reported that it had verified the nikolascruzmakarov page. Instagram also seemingly confirmed the authenticity of these account when responding to a question posed by Guardian reporter Jon Swain: Broward Sheriff Scott Israel also seemed to confirm that the nikolascruzmakarov account was authentic when he said that Cruz had posted disturbing photographs of dead lizards to social media: The nikolascruzmakarov account (the Instagram handle appears to be a combination of the suspect's name, Nikolas Cruz, and Makarov, the name of a Russian semi-automatic pistol) does feature images of dead lizards: A classmate also mentioned the dead lizard photographs on Cruz's Instagram feed in a statement to NBC News. ABC News also posted images from this account and reported that law enforcement sources had confirmed that it did indeed belong to the suspected shooter: Images from this account were also compiled for a video from the Associated Press: Fox shared this image with the caption: A picture on Nikolas Cruz's Instagram page shows him holding a rifle. (Instagram). A classmate told the Daily Beast that Cruz frequently wore patriotic clothing and that he was spotted wearing at least one MAGA hat: Regardless of what political party the Parkland mass shooter purported to support, a picture of his belief system is coming into focus: on 15 February 2018, the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks and monitors hate groups, issued a press release stating that he may have been affiliated with Republic of Florida, a white supremacist group. However, local law enforcement says that as yet there is no indication of any ties between Cruz and any paramilitary groups, including ROF. (en)
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