E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSGene Rosen was finishing up his morning routine this past Friday when he noticed six small children sitting at the end of his driveway. He soon discovered they were some of the lucky ones to escape gunfire alive. He talks about taking them into his home and learning that their teacher, Victoria Soto, had been killed.
Retired psychologist Gene Rosen was hailed as a hero for taking six terrified first-graders into his home and giving them fruit juice during the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
The four girls and two boys told Rosen they couldn’t return to class because a man with guns had killed their teacher. Indeed Victoria Soto was among the 26 dead – 20 children and six staffers – gunned down by Adam Lanza at the Newtown, Conn., school that day.
“I comforted them because I’m a grandfather,” Rosen, 69, who lives across the street from the school, said in an appearance on TODAY after the tragedy. “They were mortified.”
Now, Rosen and his wife are scared. He says he is being harassed by so-called Sandy Hook "truthers," conspiracy theorists who believe that facts about Newtown are being covered up by the media or other forces as part of a government or anti-gun plot.
“I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor,” Rosen told the online magazine Salon. A white supremacist message board, Salon said, had ridiculed the “emotional Jewish guy.”
New York passes major gun control law - first since Newtown massacre
A photo of Rosen's home was posted online and fake social network accounts have been created in his name, according to the report. Blog posts call him a fraud. “What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov’t sponsored hoax anyway?” said one message accusing him of acting, according to Salon.
“The quantity of the material is overwhelming,” Rosen said, adding that his wife is worried for their safety.
Rosen’s treatment is the outgrowth of Newtown shooting conspiracy theories expanding on the Internet. Such claims are even coming from sources that appear to be mainstream.
Florida Atlantic University communications professor James Tracy, who in a blog post stated, “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place – at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described.”
Or reporter Ben Swann, who questioned police accounts of the Aurora, Colo., shootings as well as the Sandy Hook massacre in an online program called “Full Disclosure.” Swann, in both instances, latches on to witness accounts reported in the early confusion of the tragedies to question whether more than one gunman was involved. There is “reason to question this whole narrative,” Swann said.
Some of the conspiracy theories blame Jewish people for roles in the Newtown tragedy. Those claims even led Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League to respond. In a blog post Foxman laments the inevitable rumor mill that sprouts up on the Internet after major disasters and tragedies that the news media is hiding the truth and that Jews or Israel play a role.
“But never in a million years did I think that the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, an event that has so traumatized Americans and shocked people the world over, would become the latest fodder for cynical anti-Semites and anti-Israel conspiracy theorists,” Foxman wrote.
Conspiracy theories are nothing new, the ADL's Director of Investigative Research Mark Pitcavage points out, but they come in different stripes. One type is based on a single event, such as Sandy Hook, rather than a long-running series of complex machinations spanning the globe.
"What they tend to share is an incident occurs that is large and heinous, so much so that psychologically there will be people who are unwilling to accept a simple explanation for how the event took place," Pitcavage told NBC News.
Whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating John F. Kennedy 50 years ago is considered the "ultimate example."
"Psychologically people are unwilling, unprepared to accept that it was a lone gunman. So if they can't accept that, there must be some other explanation. That's why these conspiracy theories emerge."
The terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, also spawned conspiracy theories, and led to the coining of the phrase "truthers" to describe them.
Related stories:
- Connecticut school named for slain Newtown teacher
- Obama to release gun recs as early as Wednesday
- Support soars for tougher gun laws, surveys show
Leave a Comment:
Apparently the shooter isn't the only nut running around Newtown.
Stunning isn't it!? That people this crazy are running around lose!!
My last & final comment on this: I am in no way attacking or belittling Mr. Rosen. He appears to be a true and caring gentleman.
My comments are directed to the paid sheep who think questioning authority and the "facts as presented" is tantamount to treason.
May your chains lay lightly upon your body. Good evening - and good luck.
I'm not so sure about the picture with Obama as that could easily be faked but I do remember seeing the AR taken out of the trunk of a car when the media was still reporting 2 killed by a gunman. As i'm not a big conspiracy guy i'm still open to listening because I witness everyday how the media LIES about guns to help it's long standing agenda. So share everything you have.
If that was your "last and final" jacque, bye-bye - don't let your keyboard hit you in your A$$
LOL!....good one!
Tao of wow wrote: I think a lot of it comes from genuine questions and the lack of open answers The Sandy Hook Shooting - Fully Exposed. Now if you have links that answer the questions brought forth please I want to see them.
----------
What a bunch of crock. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, however based in fiction or bad drugs or some such. Just because a bunch of nutjobs "have questions" doesn't mean they have merit. Here's my question: Why do people like you grab on to the first conspiracy theory you stumble over and trot it out as if there's some big mystery to be solved. The only mystery here is why that mother didn't secure her guns from her ass wipe son and why you waste bandwidth on this nonsense.
So because her opinion doesn't mesh with yours means you have the right to denigrate her by alluding drug use? She certainly has the right to question and express her opinion. It's people like you who would trample another person rights because you disagree that's scary. I thought you progressives were supposed to be tolerant and open minded. Guess you proved that to be a lie.
Has anyone who is defening Mr. Rosen watched his interviews with the press? His account of what happened is extremely bizarre:
There were children from Victoria Sotos class on his lawn? Left there by a bus driver? That he took inside rather than handing them over to EMS or PD? And he looked at the victim list at 6pm that night when the list had not yet been released?
from Poster #475
which is what Mr Rosen is on video saying to the news ..... is that a lie?
The crazies are really at it now, arent they!? Thought disorded people who cant deal with reality want to spread that stupidity, hate and shizophrenia to others. They should be arrested for harassment and smacked with a huge lawsuit. Put them on a talk show and have the audience laugh and boo at them. Nut jobs.
When do you go on ?
"Truthers"? More like "Liars".
I suppose the funeral footage of all the beautiful children killed that day was "faked" too. I am not saying that some of those mass murders aren't related but Good God, those kids were killed, pure and simple. Let them rest in peace and let their families begin the healing process, as much as possible.
To the people who are claiming that Sandy Hook was a hoax, prove it. Call a nationwide news conference and bring forth your evidence and witnesses. It's that simple. I am sick and tired of reading comments about how "this group was responsible", this "person" was seen lurking about the day before it happened, ad nauseum!
26 people were slaughtered, 20 of them children. Please don't disrespect their memories and the suffering of their families. In the name of the victims and their families, if you have evidence, bring it forward so those responsible can be brought to justice. If you don't, SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My prayers and condolences to the people of Sandy Hook.
"Truthers", "Birthers", Holocaust deniers all have one common thread: crackpots.
The people doing this are no less sensitive than rosie o'donnel and the other idiot truthers who claimed that Bush and his government destroyed the World Trade Center. As with fat rosie and her left wing minions, these people need to be ignored as psychotic, agenda driven, and classless.
It's obvious Bush and his minions had nothing to do with 9-11; it worked.
Noone has even mentioned the worse part, which is that he is also being accused of being a pedophile and of murdering at least one of the children in his basement... I'm just so apalled at what these "truthers" are doing to this man and his wife. This situation is providing another reason for people to not step forward in time of need for fear for of reprisals. Such a huge shame because we would all like to think we would do the right thing if needed, but to think that you might need to have something like this at the back of your mind - it is shameful!!!
Apparently there bunch more nuts running around Newtown.
These truthers have been listening to Trump, Beck and all the rest of those RWNJs.
@Chris Hall... Please tell us which part of the Constitution President Obama has changed. Those of us with common sense see the same document that has been there for a very long time. Has there been an Amendment lately the whole world is unaware of? Please explain.
The shooter was really a terminator. This means that there were at least 2 of them since a terminator cannot self terminate. These stories really do this country justice, we have such reverence to tragic events, yet we can't wait to bastardize it. Not only that, we love to feed the ego with delusions of genius; that we were smart enough to realize the truth before the masses; that we are special and have the inside story. When in reality these people are dull, gullible, and searching for the answer they want, not the truth.
What makes you all think these 'truthers' are right wingers? I'm a right winger, and I have some friends that are staunch left wingers that are truthers about this and 9/11. Not all lefties are wackos, just like not all righties are.
equal opportunity wackos??
Heck yeah. Unfortunately, people with a political hate-on try to tar their opposition with whatever crap they can. People now-a-days don't seem to realize that the people on the right and the people on the left share a heck of a lot of values, and differ on a few things. Even if we disagree on some important issues, we're all still people. We shouldn't hate strangers because of politics.
I heard this Guy give his story and IT Seemed Sincere -- But Maye Just Maybe Hes NOT All There --Who Really wants to bother him? -- Maybe as a Trained Psychologist He should have Thought Twice before going Public!
Something Smells in Denmark?!
These conspiracy advocates have been around since the anti-war demonstrations of the 60's. they look them same as each generation takes over from the previous one. You know them at once. The guys are in their 40's or 50's balding, thin with wire rim glasses and a ponytail. The gals have long graying hair and maxi-skirts. They never change and will flood the internet with their crap about sandy hook until another disaster comes along and off they run to hold hands and sing kumbaya trying to outdo each other with outlandish claims of another conspiracy. Just ignore them.
I hope Kory doesn't own any weapons.
This just proves how incredibly stupid people can be these days.
Why don't these "truthers" get on a bus and travel to Newtown and meet some of the parents who wish it was all a hoax too?
Stupid. No one said that it never happened- It def happened, but there are many ques as to HOW it happened.
The real conspiracy is the weatherman. Everyday it seems like he tells me one thing, and it turns out to be completely wrong. All I'm asking for is the TRUTH weatherman, the TRUTH.
oswald was a patsy. there are bigger fish in the pond that make things go their way... it's called big business, and they make a lot of big money. question everything. to take all these tragic events at face value is very naive.
If anyone here would take a few minutes to review any validity to the story, you would see that alot of it doesn't make sense. No tin foil or truther insults makes anyone look educated or informed. If you see a story that defies logic and start asking questions about it, thats intelligent. If you see building#7 come down and say there's nothing suspicious about that, then you simply don't care about the truth. If you blindly believe what you see on T.V. then you have no right to comment on intelligence of others! FIRST look at why people are saying things. like the father who laughs before his dead daughter speech, thats not normal!
thanks
ok,I.m not a conspiracy theorist but i will say I saw the original interview with this guy the day after the shooting and thought it was odd that he kept these children at his home while he tried to contact their parents. he never says in the interview that he contacted the police about the children that showed up at his house.
Now call me crazy... but if six young children showed up at my home claiming to have witnessed a mass murder calling the police would be the first thing on my agenda?
to even consider this is stupidity. stop feeding the frenzy!
Hey i'm a realist and i'm CERTAIN this kind of $hit isn't beyond some but i'm a realist so just SAYING it doesn't get it done. I NEED PROOF otherwise SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1