Rumors that San Bernadino Shooting Is an ISIS Terrorist Attack Have Already StartedBy Jack Phillips, Epoch Times | December 2, 2015Last Updated: December 2, 2015 9:27 pm
Many were spreading rumors suspects in San Bernardino attack was Farooq Saeed or Farouk Sayed, and "Tayyeep Bin Ardogan," or "Sam Hyde." A first responder attends to a person outside a Southern California social services center in San Bernardino, where authorities said multiple people were shot Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. (KNBC via AP)
On Wednesday, there was rampant speculation on who the suspects were in the fatal San Bernardino, California, shooting literally minutes after it happened, and before any description of the suspects had been given out.
UPDATE as of 8 p.m. ET: Supporters of ISIS, the Islamic State, began celebrating the mass shooting with the #America_Burning hashtag. However, there’s been no “official” confirmation from the terrorist group that they’re responsible.
“Three lions made us proud. They are still alive,” one ISIS supporter tweeted in Arabic, according to a translation from Vocativ. “California streets are full with soldiers with heavy weapons. The Unites States is burning #America_Burning #Takbir”
“God is great and he the one to be praised for that,” another posted on a darknet forum in Arabic. “This is hell with god’s will.”
In many mass casualty incidents, rumors spread like wildfire before any official information or credible media reports come out, making it difficult for users to tell what’s real, a rumor, or just a hoax. The shooting in San Bernardino appears to be no exception. Again, no suspects have been identified and descriptions were not given, according to preliminary reports. In previous mass shootings, even journalists have gotten suspects’ names wrong and brought unwanted attention on completely innocent people.
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Later, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Riverside police dispatchers have “unconfirmed reports the suspects were male and of Middle Eastern origin.” They had AK-47s and body armor.
The shooting took place at or near a center with developmental disabilities. Reports from the local sheriff’s department said there were one to three suspects involved in the incident. The names and identities of the suspect, or suspects, were not revealed. CNN reported that two suspects were shot and killed, and one of them was a woman. Another suspect is believed to be on the loose.
Thousands of people on Twitter were saying the shooting was carried out by ISIS or supporters of the group known as the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. According to Google Trends, which tracks search terms for trending topics, “ISIS,” or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and “California” were heavily searched in tandem with one another.
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Google Trends screenshot
Farooq Saeed and Tayyeep Bin Ardogan?
Twitter users were also spreading rumors that someone with the name “Farooq Saeed” or “Farouk Sayed,” was the suspect, and at least one news outlet tweeted it:
The name “Farooq Saeed” was gleaned from San Bernardino police scanner traffic, which can be notoriously unreliable. Some were circulating an article from a website called WeaselZippers.com, which says it is “scouring the bowels of the Internet,” that said the suspect’s name is “Farooq Saeed,” based on scanner traffic. Notorious hacker, “Th3j35t3r,” also posted the name to his 70,000 followers. Meanwhile, conservative blogs were reposting the name in the headline, likely to garner Google search traffic.
Later, the name “Tayyeep Bin Ardogan” was being passed around on Twitter. It was also taken from scanner traffic.
None of these reports–which are based on police scanner traffic–should be considered reliable as there’s been no credible reports that have come out about the names of possible suspects.
On social media, people were also using the unconfirmed reports of the name, which is Arabic in origin, as an opportunity to attack President Barack Obama and his policies, namely his support of allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. and push for tighter restrictions on firearms.
There were also hoax rumors that said “Sam Hyde,” the Massachusetts-based YouTube comedian was responsible, claiming he’s a white supremacist or neo-Nazi. His name gets tossed around frequently after shootings in the U.S., and it’s definitely fake.
To highlight the precarious nature of the rumors, others were circulating a video of a Christmas party at the building where the shooting took place, saying the incident took place during the party. The Christmas party video was shot on Dec. 1, a day before the shooting occurred.
People are evacuated by law enforcement agencies from the Inland Regional Center the scene of a shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. on Wed. Dec. 2, 2015. (Doug Saunders/Los Angeles News Group via AP)
People are evacuated by law enforcement agencies from the Inland Regional Center the scene of a shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. on Wed. Dec. 2, 2015. (Doug Saunders/Los Angeles News Group via AP)
Others were speculating on Twitter the shooting suspect is a “lone wolf” white male, which is the stereotype of mass shooters in the United States.
On CNN, FBI Assistant Director Ron Hosko told the network he predicts the suspects are probably “anti-government” or “militia” types.
Following the Planned Parenthood shooting last week that left three people dead, there were Twitter users spreading rumors that ISIS was involved in the attack. The suspect in the case, 57-year-old Robert Lewis Dear, was later arrested, and he didn’t have any ties to a known terrorist organization.
Police said that as many as 14 people were killed and 14 were injured in the shooting.
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