Latest “crisis actor” theory targets Borderline shooting victim’s mother

Online conspiracy theorists are accusing a mother of one of the Borderline Bar & Grill shooting victims of being an actor who has also played “roles” in the Orlando Florida Pulse nightclub shooting and the Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay massacre.

One popular conspiracy theory we constantly have to revisit is the abhorrent “false flag crisis actor” theory that asserts nearly all mass shootings that happen in the United States are staged by the government or “deep state”, and didn’t really happen. An offshoot of these theories is that the victims, the victim’s families and the first responders are all actors, referred to as “crisis actors”, employed by the government to play their respective roles.

Conspiracy theorists typically claim such “false flag” attacks are used to help the government enact gun control, despite the fact that little gun control legislation has ever been enacted in response to such shootings.

As absurd as those theories sound, they are prolifically championed by an increasing number of online theorists. And if it couldn’t get any more asinine, another reoccurring theme is that the same crisis actors are employed to play roles in different mass shootings; assertions that appear to be based entirely on casual physical resemblances between different people involved in different mass shootings.

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That accusation has most recently been leveled on Susan Orfanos, the mother of Telemachus Orfanos. Telemachus Orfanos was present during the 2017 Las Vegas Mandalay Bay massacre that killed 58 people during a Country Music concert, and despite surviving that shooting, he was killed in the mass shooting at Borderline Bar & Grill only a year later. His other Susan was famously interviewed shortly after claiming she “didn’t want prayers”, instead demanding “gun control”.

I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control. And I hope to God nobody else sends me any more prayers. I want gun control. No more guns.

Those involved in mass shootings who subsequently champion gun control legislation are often targeted by conspiracy theorists. Soon after her interview, posts like the below began to circulate claiming Orfanos also played roles in the Orlando and the Las Vegas Shooting where her son was present.

While conspiracy theorists may be inclined to believe that putting the photos of three women they believe to be the same person may help their cause, it does the opposite, since the women are quite clearly different people, whose only resemblance appears to be that they are roughly the same age, Caucasian and wear eyeglasses.

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The woman in the top photo is Jan Lambourne, who was shot during the Las Vegas shooting. The woman in pink on the right photo is Christine Leinonen being interviewed after the Orlando shooting which killed her son Christopher. And the photo in the bottom right is Susan Orfanos during her interview about gun control.

All three are different, do not look particularly alike, have different lives, live in different cities and belong to completely different families. Of course none of that has not stopped thousands of people online sharing the bizarre and inexplicable theory that they are one and the same, a crisis actor employed to cover up the latest false flag shooting.

Those targeted by these types of theories are often harassed by Internet trolls, and that harassment frequently spills out into the real world. Gene Rosen, who sheltered children during the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, was continually targeted by online trolls for years after the shooting. Two parents from the Sandy Hook shooting filed a lawsuit against Alex Jones, host of conspiracy site InfoWars.com after he promoted theories that led to them being harassed and accused of being actors. And two conspiracy theorists were arrested at Sutherland Springs Church earlier in 2018 after they visited the site shortly after a mass shooting there.

In this case, just like all the others, there is simply no evidence whatsoever to backup the claim that Susan Orfanos is a crisis actor or that she played “roles” in other mass shootings.