There Were Multiple Shooters at Pulse in Orlando-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
An individual named Cody Agnew claims in a Facebook post that his employee’s sister was working at Pulse when the deadly shooting occurred and that there were three shooters there, two of which got away.
The Truth:
There was just one shooter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Omar Mateen.
Rumors that the media has conspired to cover up that there were as many as three shooters at the club and that two got away were started by an unreliable Facebook user who has been known to falsely drum up hysteria in the past.
Cody Agnew posted an account of the Pulse nightclub shooting that he allegedly heard second hand from someone who was working at the Pulse at the time of the shooting:
Earlier I had posted about my employee’s sister who was at the club when the whole situation went down. I just got some updates. She took 12 bullets, 11 were removed and one is in her liver and can’t be taken out. She is coherent, fairly stable, and VERY lucky to still be alive. But that’s not the point of this post. There are bits of information that the media aren’t telling us. Mind you, this is coming directly from a survivor of the attack: there are two others that were in the club slaughtering people last night that were not caught. They are still out there and they are armed and dangerous. The media is not reporting this because they don’t want to scare everyone, but I think it’s important that people know. Friends, please stay safe. I would probably avoid theme parks, clubs, shopping malls or anywhere with a high concentration of people for a little while. I’m not trying to spread fear, rather awareness, and make sure that all of my friends stay alive…
Within a day, the post had been shared more than 70,000 times, and many took Cody Agnew’s claims at face value and believed that there were three shooters at the Orlando nightclub and that every media outlet chose not to report it because “they don’t want to scare everyone.”
But the post and Cody Agnew’s entire Facebook profile were quickly deleted after users began coming forward that he was incredible and hand made false posts in the past to generate attention and even to scam people out of money.
Another Facebook user re-posted screenshots of gushing messages that Cody Agnew had sent to famous singers and said “he just wants attention and to spread hysteria”:
The Orlando Police Department also came forward on Twitter to directly address rumors that there was more than one shooter:
The local police department would have no reason to lie about there being just one shooter, and doing so could help the other shooters get away, or lead to another mass casualty incident.
Given that, and Cody Agnew’s lack of credibility, we’re calling reports of more than one shooter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando fiction