PolitiFact | There’s nothing fabricated about this shooting.
News about Saturday’s mass shooting that killed five people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is still developing, but that hasn’t stopped baseless social media claims from describing it as a “false flag” operation.
One tweet from a well-known purveyor of misinformation, Real Raw News, was posted a day after the shooting and claimed it was staged because of a perceived connection to the QAnon conspiracy theories.
“Odd that the place was called Club ‘Q,’” the tweet said. “I smell False Flag.”
There’s nothing fabricated about this shooting. The loved ones of five who authorities say were killed — Daniel Aston, 28, Kelly Loving, 40, Ashley Paugh, 35, Derrick Rump, 38, and Raymond Green Vance, 22 — are grieving. “We’re heartbroken. We’re sad. We’re mad, angry,” Paugh’s sister, Stephanie Clark, told NBC.
Club Q opened as a gay club in Colorado Springs in the early 2000s, well before QAnon first emerged as a conspiracy theory in 2017. Coverage of the club’s opening by local newspaper The Gazette focused on the club owners’ aim to serve the queer community at a time when mainstream media was increasingly embracing LGBTQ culture amid popular shows like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “Will & Grace.”
There is no evidence the club is linked to QAnon.
False flag operations historically referred to when a military force or ship flew the flag of another country to deceive an enemy. The term then...
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