False claims about the shooter at a Christian elementary school in Nashville have been swirling on social media. Police shot and killed the suspect, whom they identified as 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale. The person was not named “Samantha Hyde” — a reference to a long-running internet hoax.
Police have identified 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale as the shooter who killed six people — including three 9-year-old children — at the Covenant School, a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27.
The shooting took place at about 10 a.m., and by 10:30 a.m. officers had shot and killed Hale inside the school, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
The department reported the shooting on Twitter at noon and by 2 p.m. it had announced that the shooter was a “28-year-old Nashville woman.”
Officials released the shooter’s name about an hour later.
In the meantime, though, internet trolls adapted a well-worn hoax that follows many mass shootings.
Since 2015, some social media users have spread false claims that a comedian named Sam Hyde is the suspect in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting.
In this case, claims began circulating that “Samantha Hyde” was the suspect.
But, as we said, the name released by police was Audrey Hale, and the latest take on the Sam Hyde hoax is just that — a hoax.
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