Friday, May 27, was supposed to be the first full day of summer break for the students and staff of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Instead, it marked the end of a brutal week marred by loss, grief, heartbreak and anger, after 19 children and two teachers were killed at the school on May 24 by an 18-year-old shooter.
The attack was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.
The shooting became the focus of a wave of viral misinformation, fueled, in part, by the fact that details about the shooting and the police response have conflicted or changed over time.
PolitiFact has written more than a dozen fact-checks related to the shooting and has compiled a guide for avoiding misinformation about mass shootings. Media literacy experts recommend that you slow down, verify what you see online before you share it, and take care to ensure that you don’t fall into the trap of believing that information is true just because it was shared by someone with a large following.
Below is a round-up of our fact-checking, which debunks misinformation about the shooting and evaluates the veracity of comments that public figures made in response to the attack. Have a post or claim that you want us to fact-check? Send it to [email protected].
Authorities identified 18-year-old Salvador Ramos as the gunman who shot and killed 21 people at Robb Elementary...
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