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Comment by pmcgrathm | Hacker News Reader

Per a SWAT officer - his team has not been activated, which means the situation is under control. Apparently an attempted murder/suicide. Female shooter. 10-20 shots fired and multiple people being treated for gunshot wounds. No news as to what happened to the shooter.

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I'd suggest everyone reading exercise extreme caution with unverified information like this. There are already widespread conflicting reports of female vs. male, wearing body armor vs. not, etc. etc.

Don't doubt for a second that 4Chan and the like are eagerly spreading disinformation as we speak. You don't know the source of this information. Wait for official information before forwarding anything.

NBC reporting shooter is female and that she is "down".

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/981278771381768193

What a bunch of disgusting comments in that thread.

Honestly, it's times like this that make me incredibly fucking sad for the future of humanity. It's bad enough that there are people dealing with a tragic and imminent situation, but to then immediately make this about yourself is absolutely loathsome.

Also, the comments on the live YouTube broadcast of 'they deserved it' or 'serves them right' or 'what now, NRA' are fucking repulsive. Seriously, I don't know how to fix this problem, but it makes me so incredibly angry to realize just how few people can empathize with the plight of others.

It makes you wonder if it is real people commenting, or bots/troll firms set up to stoke outrage

One day the humans will all leave the internet out of disgust, leaving the bots to fight their wars alone.

Little bit of both. But considering how fast the fake shooter images appeared Im leaning towards it being bots.

This is exhibit A of why I can't stand Twitter. It has negative value in so many circumstances.

People invoke such outrage as well.

what you actually learned is that a few people are assholes. try to keep perspective through that massive empathy you think you have

I'm not sad for the future. I'm sad for the present.

The suspected shooter is confirmed female: https://twitter.com/LesterHoltNBC/status/981283642373758976

Shooter w/ self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Handgun pulled out of purse.

I think that under the circumstances links/citations are required. False rumours are rampant and it's too easy to contribute to their spread (even unwittingly).

Strongly agreed. Citation or it's just a rumor.

[deleted, not worth it]

> Do you expect the SWAT agent to stop and write a blog post so this person can cite it?!

The poster (most likely) did not talk directly to the SWAT agent. I was asking for a link to the poster's source containing the SWAT agent's account.

> Unless you have reason to suspect this three-year-old account is suddenly spreading harmful lies, this is as credible as anything else we're hearing.

I don't doubt the poster's good intent, but well-meaning people are just as effective a conduit for the spread of disinformation as the malicious (indeed, they can be even more effective).

This three-year-old account might believe this to be absolutely true, because they were told it by someone they trust. And that person was told it by someone they trust. And so on, through dozens of people if not more, and all it takes is one person in the chain to start exaggerating/fabricating information and everyone is forwarding false information.

> this is as credible as anything else we're hearing.

You're right there. And that's the point: nothing we are hearing is credible. Treat it as such.

It is much, much, much better to say nothing than to say something potentially incorrect in times of mass confusion.

To be clear, this is an extreme circumstance where people hunting for an explanation could easily gravitate toward misinformation is a uniquely destructive way. So, sure, I don't have a reason to suspect OP is a liar; I have a reason to suspect that all information right now is likely untrue unless confirmed otherwise.

How does it affect anyone's lives if this is a rumor or true? The situation will unfold exactly the same whether it is live updated on HN or not. I'm inclined to believe that OP at least is acting in good faith, because their username looks like a real name, they claim to be an engineer at Netflix, and have a long unrelated post history. Maybe they are honest, but got bad information, or maybe it is true information. But still, who cares? Getting information 1 hour earlier will only satisfy some gossip desire and not actually affect your lives.

Every comment ever posted on HN is an excuse for other users to argue about epistemology. Even your question is likely to become an argument about how we can be certain of the net harm caused by misinformation after shootings, with citations about that. HN culture is terrified of false beliefs even when it doesn't matter, so it's no surprise most of the comments are about the fear of false beliefs when it might matter.

San Bruno police just held a mini press briefing, indicated that their is one person dead with a gunshot wound that seems to be self-inflicted that would appear to be the shooter; but certainly was a lot less willing to commit to that as a fact than you (or some other news sources, even before the briefing) are.

A female shooter must be a relatively rare scenario?

Maybe she didn't like Tuesdays.

That's a bizarre question. Why are you asking?

Why is it bizarre? Stories of female shooters are relatively rare. It makes it noteworthy.

Sadly there are many stories of people who kill their lovers, whatever their gender. You can read about them in the tabloids, every day.

Reporting on the specific activities of police during a shooter event is generally considered bad form. Please don’t share information about where and/or how police are/aren’t deployed in realtime.

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