Monday, December 12, 2016

Fake Abuse

Trump Hate Hoaxes

As soon as Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election, a wave of hysteria swept across the nation’s liberal and progressive voters. At first, there was utter denial of the results.

But later, as Trump’s victory finally began to sink in, a disturbing series of news reports filled the airwaves. It seems that in city after city, there were accounts of hate-filled and violent incidents whereby damage or injuries were caused by supposed Trump supporters.

In Lafayette, Louisiana, an 18-year-old female student of the University of Louisiana reported that two white men, one of whom was wearing a Trump hat, exited an SUV and ran up to her, yelled racial obscenities and pulled off her hijab. She also claimed they robbed her of her wallet.

She reported the events to the Lafayette Police Department. Within hours, the story had been picked up by news outlets across the country. Liberals began sharing this revolting tale of prejudice and hatred. Expressions of vitriol and anger swept the Internet as the narrative was shared tens of thousands of times.

But there was just one problem: under pressure, the student later admitted the whole story was fake. A spokesman for the University of Louisiana wouldn’t comment on whether this individual will face punitive or disciplinary action due to federal privacy laws.

At North Park University in Chicago, a self-professed bisexual student named Taylor Volk claimed that supporters of Trump had emailed her anonymous messages of “hate” and left notes tacked to the door of her dorm room. These emails and notes contained threatening language along with mentioning Trump in a hashtag. Additionally, Volk said that a number of the messages were homophobic and contained hateful slurs.

The story was reported on Chicago’s NBC5-TV and was shared widely on social media. “This is a countrywide epidemic all of a sudden,” said Volk. “I think that those who have those feelings have been emboldened by this election… I just want them to stop.”
Volk said the outpouring of support for her from the school’s community had been “astounding.” The problem? This incident, too, was made-up.

A subsequent university investigation found that all of the messages had been falsified; university president David Parkyn sent a letter to students that read, “The incident and the related messages were fabricated. We are confident there is no further threat of repeated intolerance to any member of our campus community stemming from this recent incident.” Volk is now no longer enrolled in the school.

At Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Ohio, not one, but two reports filed by students of hate crimes were found to be untrue. In one case, a man claimed he was shoved to the ground, called a racial slur and robbed. Thomas Gibson, Bowling Green’s vice president of student affairs, later released a statement that said the attack had not occurred.

In the other BGSU incident, a black female student named Elisha Long claimed she was attacked by three white men wearing Trump gear who threw rocks at her and called her a racial slur. Long wrote about what happened to her on Facebook, and her account was shared thousands of times.

Long’s father notified the police, who interviewed Long about the incident. But the more the detectives quizzed Long, the more her story changed. Lt. Dan Mancuso of the local police department said, “Several times the complainant changed her story about what happened, where it happened, and when it happened.”

After obtaining a warrant for the woman’s cell phone history and Facebook posting history, the police quickly determined Long had been lying about the attack. Furthermore, it was found that Long had sent messages containing derogatory remarks about Trump supporters to her mother and her boyfriend. “I hope they all get AIDS,” read one message. Another said Trump fans “should take an IQ test to vote.” Long was charged with obstructing police business and falsifying a police report.

In Santa Monica, California, a young Canadian man named Chris Ball — who happened to be gay — was at a bar on Election Night. According to Ball, some rowdy drunk men yelled crude comments out at him and his friend. “We got a new president, you f***ing faggots,” they called out to Ball. Ball said he did his best to ignore them.

Later, after he left the bar, Ball claimed he was jumped in the parking lot. Ball said several men (who he admitted may not have been the same men at the bar) smashed a bottle over his head. He claimed he went to a local hospital and took some “selfie” pics that he posted to social media.

When one looks at the pictures, the amount of dark red blood on Ball’s shirt would seem more appropriate for a gunshot wound than a beating. It also appeared as if the young man had smeared blood on his face; no open wounds were visible.

Ball talked about his attack and posted his selfie pictures on social media, and the story quickly went viral. The Facebook group U.S. Uncut featured Ball in a long post detailing his attack. Not only was the story shared on Facebook and other online media, it was picked up by many national newspapers.

Again, there was just one problem: there were no police or medical records for a person of Ball’s name reporting such an attack or checking into a hospital anywhere in the area. A Reddit group started to cover the incident, and people in it began researching Ball’s account. It turns out that the Canadian is an independent horror movie director who has regular access to makeup and fake blood.

The local police released the following statement: “The Santa Monica Police Department and the City of Santa Monica have not received any information indicating this crime occurred in the City of Santa Monica. We encourage the alleged victim to come forward and work with us if a crime did, in fact, take place. A check of local hospitals revealed there was no victim of any such incident admitted or treated as well.”

At least 15 other hate crimes and/or vandalism that were reported on television or newspapers following Trump’s victory have been confirmed to have been hoaxes.

If all these stories seem too ridiculous to be real, you wouldn’t be far from the truth. However, a number of authorities are inclined to disagree. The city of Los Angeles recently set up a Trump supporter hate-crime hotline in the aftermath of the election. This is in spite of the fact that the city regularly has protests of illegal immigrants demanding their “rights” at its main train station, and one out of every two people in the downtown area doesn’t speak English.

In the meantime, Trump protesters seem to be committing crimes that are all too real. Multiple reports of fires set and windows smashed in New York, Los Angeles and Portland compounded records of arrests of more than 100 activists, many funded and organized by groups such as MoveOn, which has received funds from Democrat billionaire disaster capitalist George Soros.

Some protesters have carried signs proclaiming violence, such as one that read, “This machine kills fascists.” In a few protests, police have been attacked, and in others, innocent people have been beaten up because they were mistaken for Trump voters.

For conservatives, the best answer to all these actions is to take the high road; ultimately, investigations will bear out that it’s progressives who are responsible for the vast majority of incidents. As long as Trump supporters realize that all of these protesters will eventually resign themselves to Trump’s win and sit at home being crybabies, the nation can perhaps begin the overdue healing process it needs in the wake of this turbulent election.



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