<\/p>\n
Gene Rosen helped six kids during the Connecticut school shooting. Now conspiracy theorists are harassing him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d sighed Gene Rosen. \u201cI\u2019m getting hang up calls, I\u2019m getting some calls, I\u2019m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I\u2019m lying, that I\u2019m a crisis actor, \u2018how much am I being paid\u2019?\u201d Someone posted a photo of his house online. There have been phony Google+ and YouTube accounts created in his name, messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing the \u201cemotional Jewish guy,\u201d and dozens of blog posts and videos \u201cexposing\u201d him as a fraud.\u00a0One email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted: \u201cHow are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the \u2018shooting\u2019. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov\u2019t sponsored hoax anyway?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He has to have friends monitor his Internet presence and has to document each threat, every email, all threatening phone calls in case “something happens.”<\/p>\n
What did Rosen do to deserve this? One month ago, he found six little children<\/a> and a bus driver at the end of the driveway of his home in Newtown, Connecticut. \u201cWe can\u2019t go back to school,\u201d one little boy told Rosen. \u201cOur teacher is dead.\u201d He brought them inside and gave them food and juice and toys. He called their parents. He sat with them and listened to their shocked accounts of what had happened just down the street inside Sandy Hook Elementary, close enough that Rosen heard the gunshots.<\/p>\n
In the hours and days that followed, Rosen did a lot of media interviews. \u201cI wanted to speak about the bravery of the children, and it kind of helped me work through this,\u201d he told Salon in an interview. \u00a0\u201cI guess I kind of opened myself up to this.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Enter conspiracy theorists.<\/p>\n
The \u201cthis\u201d in question is becoming a prime target of the burgeoning Sandy Hook Truther movement<\/a>, which \u2014 like its precursor that denied the veracity of the 9\/11 terror attacks \u2014 alleges that the entire shooting was a hoax of some kind. There were conspiracy theories surrounding the shooting from day one, but the movement has exploded into public view the past two weeks, and a Google Tends search<\/a> suggests it\u2019s just now picking up steam. It\u2019s also beginning to earn the backing of presumably credible sources like a professor<\/a> and a reporter<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sigh. It’s one thing to be a skeptic and ask questions, it’s another to not believe copious, verified evidence and continue to ask questions simply because the answers don’t complement your opinion.<\/p>\n
Luckily, Rosen receives some support.<\/p>\n
Because for every angry call or email, there any many many more praising ones: \u201cI get the most beautifully written cards, wonderful calls.\u201d Let\u2019s hope they continue to be the majority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Agreed.<\/p>\n