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Sandy Hook Truther Steals Peace Sign from Connecticut Playground Honoring the Memory of Newtown Shooting Victim

Sandy_HookSubmitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
I’m sure the readers of this blog remember the Newtown massacre that occurred in Connecticut on December 14, 2012, when twenty students and six adults were shot and killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Not long after that tragedy, conspiracy theorists began to spread stories about the massacre being a hoax. In January of 2013, Gene Rosen, a man who had sheltered six children during the massacre, began receiving calls from people he didn’t know accusing him of lying about what had happened that day…and of his being a “crisis actor.”

At that time, Rosen didn’t know what to do. He said, “I’m getting hang-up calls, I’m getting some calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid?’” Someone even posted a picture of his house online. It was reported that Google+ and YouTube accounts were created in his name. Messages about him appeared on white supremacist messages ridiculing him as the “emotional Jewish guy.” In addition, in dozens of blog posts and videos, people claimed that Rosen was a fraud. He even received an email that purported to be a business inquiry, which taunted him asking, “How are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the ‘shooting’. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov’t sponsored hoax anyway?”

Rosen admitted that he had done a lot of media interviews following the tragedy at Sandy Hook School. He said, “I wanted to speak about the bravery of the children, and it kind of helped me work through this. I guess I kind of opened myself up to this.”

Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon reported that there were “many flavors of conspiracy theories surrounding” the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He added that one thread that united many of the theories was “the notion that this was a government hoax aimed at taking away people’s guns.” Similarly, Tom Boggioni of Raw Story said, “Sandy Hook ‘truthers’ believe that the Newtown shooting never occurred or was part of a ‘false flag’ operation designed to open the door to the confiscation of all guns by the government.” Ben Smith and CJ Lotz wrote that the “leading version of the ‘Sandy Hook Hoax’ theory, such as it is, holds that the incident was staged by the White House as a prelude to disarming America. Many of its claims are rooted in contradictory and confusing media statements that came out of the chaos of the first hours of the shooting, and which are virtually always present in such chaotic moments.” They added that similar “confused media reporting served as the basis of the 9/11 Truth movement.”

Robert Goldberg, a historian at the University of Utah who has written a book and lectured extensively about American conspiracy theories, said, “Whether it’s the Oklahoma City bombing, or the Waco incident, or Ruby Ridge, or 9/11, or Sandy Hook, the idea is that these are modern Reichstags (the event that occurred in Germany in 1933), which is an excuse that the government is going to use to declare an emergency to take the guns away from the patriots, and then confine the patriots.”

One might have hoped that the Sandy Hook truthers would have moved on by now…and maybe found a new conspiracy theory to wrap their warped minds around. Unfortunately, it appears that hasn’t happened because one of the truthers recently stole a sign from a playground in Mystic, Connecticut. The sign had been displayed at a playground dedicated to the memory of Grace McDonnell, one of the Sandy Hook shooting victims. The vinyl sign, which weighed 50 pounds and featured a peace symbol, was based on a drawing done by seven-year-old Grace. The man who claimed that he stole the sign called Grace’s home. He told Lynn McDonnell, the dead child’s mother, that he had taken the sign because he believes that the shooting at Sandy Hook was a hoax. McDonnell said that the caller taunted her by claiming that her daughter Grace never existed. How heartless and cold can a person be?

Peace Sign Stolen From Conn. Playground Honoring Sandy Hook Victim Grace McDonnell

Tom Boggioni said that the Grace McDonnell playground is “one of 26 planned playgrounds being built by the Where Angels Play Foundation in honor of all 26 victims.” He added that the theft of the peace sign came ‘two weeks after another playground sign, located in Hartford, was vandalized with someone spray-painting ‘Peace to Sandy Hook,’ a peace sign, and the numeral ’2′ on it.”

I can’t begin to imagine what kind of delusional, sick individuals would steal or vandalize signs displayed on playgrounds dedicated to the memories of innocent young children who died in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.

Note: There are plans to replace the signs at both playgrounds.

SOURCES

This man helped save six children, is now getting harassed for it: Gene Rosen sheltered six kids during the Sandy Hook massacre. Now he’s become a target of conspiracy theorists (Salon)

Newtown truthers: Where conspiracy theories come from (Salon)

Your comprehensive answer to every Sandy Hook conspiracy theory: Every conspiratorial allegation about the tragic Newtown shootings, answered (Salon)

This man helped save six children, is now getting harassed for it (Salon)

Why we can’t ignore the truthers: Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists aren’t going to go away if we pretend they don’t exist (Salon)

Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theories Edge Toward The Mainstream: “By far the hottest topic of the moment.” Ignore it and it won’t go away. (BuzzFeed)

Sandy Hook truther won’t quit”: Florida professor James Tracy tells Alex Jones’ radio show that like 9/11, Newtown was “a drill that went live” (Salon)

Whither the Sandy Hook truthers?: After their assault on Gene Rosen, momentum may already be waning for the conspiracy theorists (Salon)

Beware of Conspiracy Theories About Sandy Hook (Lewis Rockwell)

Sandy Hook Truther Tells Mother of Deceased Child One of the Most Awful Things You Can Imagine (The Blaze)

Sandy Hook ‘Truther’ Tells Victim’s Mother Her Daughter Never Existed (Huffington Post)

Peace Sign Stolen From Conn. Playground Honoring Sandy Hook Victim Grace McDonnell (CBS)

Where Angels Play

Newtown Marks 1-Year Anniversary Of Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting: Nation Honors 26 Victims Of Sandy Hook Massacre December 14, 2013 (CBS)

Sandy Hook truthers more hated than Westboro idiots? (Daily Kos)

Sandy Hook truther steals memorial sign, tells victim’s mother her child never existed (Raw Story)

Sandy Hook truthers claim the Newtown massacre was a hoax (America Blog)

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132 thoughts on “Sandy Hook Truther Steals Peace Sign from Connecticut Playground Honoring the Memory of Newtown Shooting Victim”

  2. rcampbell – all those Democratic crazies with guns. It really is horrifying.

  3. “…Every gun control group in America was given a platform on national TV to state their case…”

    As well they should and it should continue every day. The case they were making was for some emphasis on mental health issues and gun ownership and background checks. Hardly the frantic confiscation paranoia spread non-stop by the gun nuts on every network. Approx. 85% of Americans, including the majority of gun owners, agreed that something needs to be done. What got done? Nothing. We’re all still at risk for crazies with guns (oh wait, that’s redundant).

  4. Paul Schulte

    Dredd – the Caribs, who were working their way up the island chain, were genocidal. And the Aztec were conquerors. The only way the Spanish first defeated them was to ally with the various tribes the Aztecs had conquered. The Spanish brought nothing to the New World that wasn’t there to begin with except smallpox. In return they took syphilis back to the Old World. What you are spouting is bad history. Who every you got it from is a propagandist not a historian.
    =====================
    That racism exists in place x does not justify its existence in place y.

    You never provide links because you are the one spouting bad history.

    The logs of Columbus, priests traveling with him, and others traveling with him are but one source of that reality (Symbolic Racism: A Look At The Science – 4). Links to various historical works are provided.

    Shake the cultural slavery to cultural myths.

    1. Dredd – we have talked about linking to yourself. Your contention was that Columbus brought slavery and Conquistadors to the New World. Well, slavery was already here and so where conquistadors. They just had a different name.

      We have also talked about the lack of real science behind faux symbolic racism, but that is not getting through to you. You bang on about it as much as you like and I will bang on about how illegitimate it is.

  5. While most press reports accurately reflect what happened at various grizzly events, and gun-loss paranoia reflects gross ignorance and fear, 9/11 is different from the others. There are many many unanswered questions abut 9/11, not the least of which is how 20 mostly Saudi nationals with box cutters, could have outsmarted the entire multi-billion dollar US defense-security system. Americans lost faith that their country protects the public from anything, concluding that it protects only transnational investments in oil and other valuable resources and transport routes around the world.

    1. doglover – those Saudis did not outsmart the system, they walked right through it. The tapes of them going through checkpoints unchecked were chilling.

  6. The second amendment does not protect the rights of these retards to bear arms, period, no way, the founding fathers are turning in their graves in disgust at these cretins. These are not people; they are what dribbled down the leg. Thank you NRA for protecting the rights of the mentally deficient. Thank you NRA for threatening our representatives, purchasing some of your own and leading this country in the direction of Russia. An oligarch is an oligarch is and oligarch.

    1. isaac – the second amendment does not have a mental qualification on the right to bear arms.

  7. Some of our venerated heroes are child molesters, genocidal megalomaniacs, and mass murderers, according to conspiracy theories in “written-down” history:

    Here is my assessment of Christopher Columbus. He was a genocidal megalomaniac. Now, looking at your faces, I can detect a significant level of intellectual discomfort, so let me prove this unsettling assertion. The sources of my evidence are as good as they get – primary journal entries from Columbus himself and from some of the crewman and priests who sailed with him.

    Here is the man’s legacy: He bequeathed the New World two of the worst institutions in human history-the Slave and the Conquistador. It would take about 350 years for people of conscience to finally rid the world of slavery. And the Conquistador evil is still widespread on our planet. At this very moment there are indigenous tribes in the Amazon trying to protect their land and their way of life from lumber and cattle barons. And in Ecuador, international oil companies are destroying the habitat of jungle tribes whose ancestors lived there long before the word petroleum was even invented.

    Genocide is the murder of a large number of people of one racial or ethnic strain. But Columbus did not just kill an enormous number; he actually eradicated the Taino Indians from the face of the earth. When he first landed in Hispaniola (currently Haiti and the Dominican Republic) it was estimated that there were around 1.2 million natives there. By 1550 – less than 60 years later – there was not a single one left. And from almost the moment that his ships arrived, these gentle Indians suffered an almost incomprehensible reign of terror.

    The vicious power that Columbus and his sailors possessed was not the result of superior strength or intelligence or courage. It rested solely on having more advanced technology in the form of ocean-going ships and deadly weapons. To demonstrate his ruthless omnipotence, Columbus would punish Indians in the most hideous manner for minor offenses. He would command that a nose or ear be chopped off as a reminder to the rest of the population that he ruled supreme.

    His merciless actions became so insufferable, that mass suicides, where 100 people would jump from a cliff, became commonplace. Women stopped trying to have children and would strangle their newborn rather than allow them to live and endure the agonies of the Spaniards. And along with the normal slavery of converting people into beasts of burden, Columbus also initiated sex slavery. He even bragged in letters back to the Old World that the most favored girls were only 9 or 10 years old. So, one can add pedophilia to his crimes against humanity.

    As for his megalomania, what title did he insist on receiving from his royal patrons as payment for the slaves and stolen property that he brought back to Spain? His humble request was to be called “Admiral of the Ocean Seas.” Since this essentially includes all of the world’s oceans, it was comparable to a land-based dictator wishing to be addressed as the “Emperor of Earth.”

    But beyond his atrocities and his arrogance, this is why I despise Columbus – because as long as we honor him rather than scorn him, we are reinforcing his code of conduct.

    (RHAPSODY ON A THEME BY SOCRATES).

    1. Dredd – the Caribs, who were working their way up the island chain, were genocidal. And the Aztec were conquerors. The only way the Spanish first defeated them was to ally with the various tribes the Aztecs had conquered. The Spanish brought nothing to the New World that wasn’t there to begin with except smallpox. In return they took syphilis back to the Old World. What you are spouting is bad history. Who every you got it from is a propagandist not a historian.

  9. Schulte shrugs: “Considering the amount of horrible press coverage by the MSM….”

    Really? So you think the MSM hyped this shooting up, do you? Funny, but I would have thought that a former school teacher would be more alarmed by what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary. I suppose the extra income eases the conscience.

    How much reportage surrounding the massacre of school children do you think is appropriate? A day? Maybe two?

    And you don’t think calling the parent of a slain child and accusing him of participating in a conspiracy is evil!? At least Nick retains the sense of decency that was once wide spread throughout this country.

    1. RTC – The MSM over reacted to the 24/7 nature of the news event with wall to wall pundits screaming for gun control. Every gun control group in America was given a platform on national TV to state their case.

      This whole gun control thing is bigger than Sandy Hook. The Federal government has been buy so much ammo is has become had for civilians to get ammo. All units, including the Dept of Agriculture are now armed with Ar-15s. What does the Dept of Agriculture need with weapons? Police departments are buying rocket launchers. There are plans for martial law for the entire nation.

      We know that the UN has been actively working to disarm the United States. As have liberals. If you take away their guns you can control them. If they are still armed, they can fight back. The fear of some people about gun seizure is not unreasoned.

  10. Darren,

    “Ya can’t teach stupid.”

    Aptly put!

    “Nevertheless, what an insult to the victims and their families.”

    I feel your pain, nevertheless.

  11. I wish I thought this kind of behavior was limited to the so called fringe but its not. As much as we want to ignore it FOX News has created these fanatical deniers who think it is their birthright to abuse people and given them a 24 hour a day platform on which to spew their venom. However they may want to identify themselves they are anything but “truthers”.

  12. These people have too much time on their hands and keep running around chasing their tales. They’ll probably stick with this massacre until something else comes up, (hopefully never) and they will start focusing on the new one.

    You could line a hundred pieces of hard evidence and they will never believe it.

    Ya can’t teach stupid.

    Nevertheless, what an insult to the victims and their families.

  13. There is a fringe element with disinformation themselves, but what everyone should know is that Sandy Hook and virtually all the single killer American massacres going back to the first Prozac inspired postal murders in 1986, are deliberately planned with psychiatric drugs that suck every last gram of seratonin out of the perpetrator that is also a victim making more victims so that guns can be confiscated as they have been in Britain and elsewhere.

  14. Sick, sick person. I am constantly amazed at the sheer lunacy of the Newtown Truthers. I hope they get this guy and give him what ever maximum sentence they can give.

  15. There is a brief reference above to The Reichstag in 1933. There was an arson event in 1933 when the German Reichstag or Parliament was burned. President von Hindenburg issued the Reichstag Fire Decree. That was intended to route out the Communists who burned the building and root out the evil people. The rest is history. The Nazi Party completely took over and war and the Holocaust ensued. Some will say that the 9/11 events have a parallel. We have the Patriot Act and other laws which take away our rights so that the government can fight the terrorists. The NSA is reading this comment on this blog. I am mentioning this, not to take away from the thread of the article here but to put the Reichstag Fire Decree and that event in its proper perspective.
    We do have a lot of nutty conspiracy theorists in our country. But, we also have a Patriot Act and a government which spies on us. Us means, me, you, the People. I feel sorry for the victims of Sandy Hook and think that the Truthers need some reality checks.

  19. If I didn’t know the 9/11 Truthers were still out there beating their drums I would be more upset about this. Considering the amount of horrible press coverage by the MSM there is no wonder some people would see this as an attempt (and pundits drilled this constantly) to confiscate weapons in the area.

    I think stealing the sign is horrible and I hope the find the person and adequately punish him.

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