A teenager who survived last week’s mass shooting at a Florida high school says online conspiracy theories claiming he’s an actor with an anti-gun agenda are “absolutely disturbing.”
“I’m not a crisis actor,” Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I’m somebody that had to witness this and live through this and I continue to have to do that.”
After the Feb. 14 shooting, Hogg was among the outspoken students who criticized politicians, including U.S. President Donald Trump, as they demanded stricter gun laws. During the massacre, Hogg also recorded interviews with fellow students as they hid from the shooter.
Over the past few days, conspiracy theories have popped up online, claiming that Hogg and other Marjory Stoneman students are actually actors paid by gun control advocates. Some of those conspiracy theories also claim that Hogg’s father Kevin, a former FBI agent, coached the teen to speak out against Trump.
“I’m just so sorry that these people have lost their faith in America because I know I certainly haven’t,” Hogg, who was joined by his father for the CNN interview, told Anderson Cooper.
“These people saying this is absolutely disturbing,” he said. “I’m not an actor in any sense, way, shape or form.”
Hogg said that while it’s true his father is a former FBI agent, it is also true that he’s a Marjory Stoneman student who witnessed the shooting that took the lives of 17 of his classmates and teachers.
Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., liked a Twitter post that linked to an article titled “Outspoken Trump-Hating School Shooting Survivor is Son of FBI Agent” – a move that Hogg called “disgusting.”
“It’s unbelievable to me that these people are even saying this and the fact that Donald Trump Jr. liked that post is disgusting to me,” he said.
On Tuesday, Florida State Representative Shawn Harrison said on Twitter that he had fired one of his aides for sending an email to a reporter claiming that Hogg and another student were “actors that travel to various crisis (sic) when they happen.”
Hogg told CNN that despite what his critics say, he’s not against the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects people’s right to bear arms. He said he just wants gun ownership restricted to people who have passed background checks and have a “stable mind.”
Nikolas Cruz, 19, has been charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the mass shooting. Authorities and his former classmates have said that there were many warning signs that Cruz was mentally unstable.
With files from The Associated Press
