The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting

[Drake Valentine]

Timeline of events, quote from another area.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Scott Israel want to have a second high profile shooting in their county and meet to select date/time. (http://archive.is/hkpKO)
+Alphabet Soup gets a tip on a "suspicious comment" that N. Cruz made about wanting to be a "professional school shooter". They leave him in place to become the patsy. (http://archive.is/eU9Az)
+Teachers receive training and are notified a simulated incident will occur. (http://archive.is/pJeMy#selection-2671.0-2671.178)

__Feb 14__
+Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have an evacuation drill in the morning.

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFly5Ut5Jag

+Cruz shows up on campus via an Uber Taxi for unknown reasons.(http://archive.is/O0jbm)
+Hired team of 2-3 shooters goes into the school and fires blanks with Cruz on campus.

video

https://youtu.be/zlhMGWyT_uU

+Alexa Miednik sees Cruz during the evacuation and speaks to him while hearing shots fired elsewhere on campus.

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R39tNfv_fg

+For unknown reasons, hired shooters fail to execute Cruz and stage his suicide.
+Students are evacuated and Cruz leaves campus in the shuffle. ( See Alexa Miednik interview above ).
+Cruz does not know the police are after him and decides to go get something to eat at McDonald's/Subway without knowing he is the patsy.(http://archive.is/GOlmf)
+FBI/Police arrest him as he walks down a residential street on his way home. (http://archive.is/8MfoN)

__Feb 15__
+Cruz is presented with a plea bargain that will let him avoid the death penalty and avoid and real investigation/trial. (http://archive.is/uAhPt)
+Cruz pleads guilty to 17 counts of premeditated homicide even though he has not killed anyone.

__Feb 16__
+Demolition of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fl is announced to cover up the scene of the crime. (http://archive.is/p6UIl)

Quote source - http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/161666701/nicholas-cruz-framed-by-deep-state

[Oniya]

Oh, 4chan.  That's some prime source material there.

[Drake Valentine]

Oh, 4chan.  That's some prime source material there.

Wow, and you debunked it any other way with someone who gathered the source from other sources when posting it? /sarcasm

[Aiden]

Your source is notorious for trolling, how anyone can believe anything from that site is beyond me.

[Lustful Bride]

Your source is notorious for trolling, how anyone can believe anything from that site is beyond me.

He has a point.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

[Mithlomwen]

__Feb 16__
+Demolition of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fl is announced to cover up the scene of the crime. (http://archive.is/p6UIl)

They are not tearing down the entire school.  They are going to demolish the freshman building where the shooting took place (once the investigation is finished) and putting up a memorial for those lost to the shooting.

[Drake Valentine]

Your source is notorious for trolling, how anyone can believe anything from that site is beyond me.

He has a point.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Yet, no one makes an attempt to discredit it rationally with the info provided, other than claim it 'troll source.'

Like they say.

See no Evil. Hear no Evil. Speak no Evil.

They are not tearing down the entire school.  They are going to demolish the freshman building where the shooting took place (once the investigation is finished) and putting up a memorial for those lost to the shooting.

You do realize they are essentially still tearing down the building that where the shooting is involved? Therefore, how can any backtrack on evidence of events that may speak differently?


I still want to see someone disprove the six minute timeline stamp I made earlier of how a student can traverse three floors and escape while under high potential stress of something like that happening. I doubt anyone can reasonably go get something to eat at a fast food place afterwards. Killing is still killing, psycho or not, taking a life will regardless impact someone and if he did it we are talking multi homicide along with, again, that questionable timeframe.

[Oniya]

You are making the claim.  It is therefore up to you to provide evidence that it happened the way you said.  Credible evidence.

[Drake Valentine]

You are making the claim.  It is therefore up to you to provide evidence that it happened the way you said.  Credible evidence.

Well, if you can't look at an earlier map provided along with do some googling of your own. I don't know what to tell you.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/sfl-florida-school-shooting-timeline-20180223-htmlstory.html

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/sfl-florida-school-shooting-timeline-20180223-htmlstory.html

Which I keep seeing a lot of alteration to timeline. Some saying six minutes some saying nine minutes.

[Drake Valentine]

Bah, lack of edit.

Meant to give other link, not double link same one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/florida-school-shooting/?utm_term=.00dd536c53f1

[DominantPoet]

Was honestly wondering when the conspiracy theories were going to start up over Florida...

I'm dying of laughter over the John Oliver video that Avis posted right now :D

Wayfarer - Literally nobody is talking about eroding the bill of rights. In fact, I'd challenge you to find evidence of anyone who ever mentioned gun control, that also explicitly stated at the same time that they believe making guns illegal or having gun control is going to completely eradicate gun violence.

Drake - Telling anyone to google something is not providing credible proof. You're making the claim, you can't just tell people it's their fault for not looking into it more themselves. That's not how that works.

[Ket]

I still find it disturbing how eager people are to erode the bill of rights.

I wonder how many people would accept these "common sense" solutions if they were applied to the 1st Amendment or perhaps the 4th?

No one is talking about eroding the Bill of Rights. What is being talked about is how a singular amendment is no longer totally valid 226 years after it was ratified.

Guns were different then. The need for a well-regulated and armed militia was different then. Our country was different then.

There is nothing wrong with ensuring that we still keep our rights but also keep up with the times.

If we stuck by the second amendment in it's purest sense, then in this day and age arms can mean anything from handguns to short and long barrel rifles, to tanks, to ship guns, to the many varieties of missiles - including nuclear. Because they are supposed to be arms to prevent the tyranny of the government. But you don't see people clamoring to own tanks, ship guns, or missiles. As a matter of fact, it is illegal for John. Q. Public to own functional tanks, ship guns, or missiles (save for some very extreme circumstances).

The right to life and liberty supersedes the right to own a gun. Guns take lives, that is their sole purpose.

[Avis habilis]

Which I keep seeing a lot of alteration to timeline. Some saying six minutes some saying nine minutes.

Not like there might be any confusion surrounding a guy riddling a building full of screaming teenagers with bullets or anything.

[TheGlyphstone]

The proof is blatantly obvious to anyone who isn't a blind sheeple if you look at the numbers.

"Marjory Stoneman Douglas' has 3 words in it, and 22 letters. 'New World Order' also has 3 words in it. 'Liberal false flag attack' has 22 letters.

There were 17 victims and one shooter, for a total of 18. The incident happened in 2018, which is a suspicious coincidence.

Alex Jones has 10 fingers, which is the number of minutes I've spent writing this nonsense and the number of IQ points I've lost doing so.

[Ket]

This is from last year, by the way. Appeals court says AR-15 not constitutionally protected

[Aiden]

The proof is blatantly obvious to anyone who isn't a blind sheeple if you look at the numbers.

"Marjory Stoneman Douglas' has 3 words in it, and 22 letters. 'New World Order' also has 3 words in it. 'Liberal false flag attack' has 22 letters.

There were 17 victims and one shooter, for a total of 18. The incident happened in 2018, which is a suspicious coincidence.

Alex Jones has 10 fingers, which is the number of minutes I've spent writing this nonsense and the number of IQ points I've lost doing so.

I read this in Jordan Klepper's voice from "The Opposition"

[Ket]

I read this in Jordan Klepper's voice from "The Opposition"

*falls over laughing*

[TheGlyphstone]

I read this in Jordan Klepper's voice from "The Opposition"

Is he funny? I was real sad when Colbert Report ended, and a good successor would be welcome.

[Aiden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwVGXqlVmBM

Nothing can replace Colbert, but Klepper is hilarious.

[TheGlyphstone]

Hes probably a deep state lizardman agent, working to discredit the true believers with sidesplittingly funny humor and sarcasm.

[Oniya]

Staff would like to remind people of the following two stickies in the PROC forum:
Please read the logical fallacies announcement if you want to debate here
Guidelines when posting links to blog posts or articles

If someone asks you for a source for your arguments, be prepared to provide one somewhat better than 'this random, anonymous guy on the Internet'

[Regina Minx]

Hate to say it, but it is a False Flag event aimed on Gun Control and to entice a strong martial law with further arming of police and military…

There were reports on multiple shooters in the school…

In which Regina Minx Uses Bayesian Epistemology to Prove…No.

[/size]

The beauty about using Bayesian Epistemology is that any dispute about the epistemic probability of an event (whether or not x occurred) is that it boils down to a discussion about the value of four numbers. And since one of the numbers of the difference of the other, it really is a discussion about three numbers.

Since Bayes’ Theorem is a valid and proven tool of both mathematics and inductive logic (sources), then we must introduce it and define our terms.

A. Defining Terms



For a mass shooting h=there was a single shooter, and ~h=there were multiple shooters are both universal and mutually exclusive.

P(h|e.b)=Our final conclusion about the number of shooters at the Parkland event, after consideration of evidence and background.

P(h|b)=The prior probability of a mass shooting being the result of a single shooter. Because of the above definition, it follows that P(~h|b)=1-P(h|b).

P(e|h.b)=The probability that we would have the evidence we will consider on a theory that single shooter was responsible for the attack.

P(e|~h.b)=The probability that we would have the evidence we will consider on a theory that multiple shooters were responsible for the attack.

The last two terms hold the key to where I think a lot of people go wrong in their reasoning. They see a piece of evidence, and to them it fits with the theory they are advancing. But they never stop and think about how likely it would be to have that same evidence if some other theory was correct.

B. Prior Probability of a Single Shooter

The Washington Post compiled data from the last 150 mass shootings, in which 4 or more people were killed in a single incident. Their data was collected by the Gun Violence Archive.

Excluding the Stony Douglas shooting, which is the event under discussion, it is plain from the data that only 3 of the 149 mass shootings were perpetrated by multiple attackers (the Inland Regional Center Shooting, the Columbine High School Shooting, and the Westside Middle School Shooting, if you're curious). Since I am interested in arguing a fortiori, I will grant that an additional 6 mass shootings were actually carried out by multiple shooters. It doesn’t matter which ones, there are a total of 9 mass shootings done by multiple attackers in our data set. We just don't know about it for whatever reason. That means that per the rule of succession, that the prior probability of the 150th being the result of a single shooter is

P(h|b)=(140+1)/(149+2)=93.3%. And from there it follows that P(~h|b)=(9+1)/(149+2)=6.6% (I know they don't add up to 100%. I'm rounding here).

Now we have to consider how the evidence we're discussing gives us posterior probabilities.

C. The Evidence of The Witnesses

Eyewitness testimony is bad m’kay? So bad, in fact, that it’s considered the least reliable form of evidence we could possibly bring on deciding a question of guilt or innocence. I believe witnesses, generally, but not beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard required for criminal convictions. I am convinced that I could not be empaneled on a jury because of this. The moment a prosecutor asked me if I thought eyewitnesses were reliable, I’d have to suck air in through my teeth and say “Not especially.”

The point is, we have very low quality evidence that there were multiple shooters; someone saying that they saw a gunman in metal armor. How likely is this evidence if there was only a single shooter?

Pretty good, as it turns out. . During and after many shooting rampages, there are often conflicting accounts about the number of shooters. This is to be expected in chaotic and terrifying situation, and eyewitnesses are often recounting what they saw while running for their lives. See also this.

How often do witnesses in a mass shooting mistake the number of shooters? I could not find an exact study to give this information. Therefore, this number rests on an assumption, but I will make a maximizing assumption. I could imagine that the real probability of this is higher, perhaps much higher, but I cannot reasonably conclude that it is lower. Let us assume that there is only a 1% chance that a witness of a mass shooting will mistakenly claim an incorrect number of shooters. Like I said, I think that number is pitiably low, but I’m arguing as far against the single shooter conclusion as possible.

There are 2,972 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I’ve heard rumors that the freshman have their own building, so let’s assume that there were 750 students in the building where the shooting took place, just to use round numbers. The school boasts a 23:1 student/teacher ratio, and let us also assume that the district is not padding those numbers by including support staff and custodians in that number. That means that there are roughly 32 teachers for those 750 students, and let’s also say there were 20 support staff. That is a total of 802 people.

Even at only a 1% probability that a witness will mistakenly identify multiple shooters when there is only a single shooter, with 802 witnesses, it’s more than 99.9% probable that at least ONE of those 802 witnesses will make that mistake. Even if there are 3 eyewitnesses that report multiple attackers, we would still expect that 98.6% of the time at that 1% base fallacy rate.

In other words, best case scenario:

P(report of multiple shooters|h.b)=98.6%

I will essentially grant that the P(report of multiple shooters|~h.b)=100%. It is logical; if multiple attackers shot up the school, we would expect to have witness reports of multiple shooters.

D. The Evidence of Demolishing The School

I’m going to spend roughly zero time on this. It’s nonsensical, but I’m addressing it here for the sake of completion.

It’s actually very common to tear down the site of mass shootings. It happened at Columbine, Virginia Tech, West Nickel Mines, Northern Illinois University. There is an ongoing site about whether or not to rebuild something at Ground Zero in New York or leave it as a monument, and so on.

P(tear down|h.b)=100%

This would be the case regardless of the number of shooters, so

P(tear down|~h.b)=100%

E. Weighting the Evidence

Consequent Probability of the Evidence

P(report of multiple shooters|h.b) x P(tear down|h.b) = .986 x 1 = 98.6%
P(report of multiple shooters|~h.b) x P(tear down|~h.b) = 1 x 1 = 100%

Final Conclusion:

P(h|e.b) = (.933 x .986) / [(.933 x .986) + (.066 x 1)]
P(h|e.b) = .919938/(.919938 + .066)
P(h|e.b) = .919938/.985938
P(h|e.b) = 93.3%

I am 93 percent convinced based on the two pieces of evidence that the Stony Douglas shooting was committed by a single perpetrator. I did not consider any other piece of evidence beyond the two that you raised simply for the sake of showing why the evidence you presented is insufficient to argue your case of multiple shooters. It does not consider all ballistic evidence, any video recording, or any other piece of physical evidence that law enforcement investigation will recover. Even to get to this point I had to be beyond reasonable and grant you a mistaken number of mass shootings and low-ball how often I think witnesses get the number of shootings wrong. And it still doesn’t make it even ten percent likely that we have reason to believe anything other than there was a single shooter. If that other evidence was admitted into the evaluation, I have no doubt that number would be even higher.

A theory is not defensible if we cannot explain what would refute it. So fine.

F. How to Refute Regina's Conclusion

To do that, you must find different probabilities, and not just claim them, but make a sound case for why we should adopt them. Accordingly, that is where the argument must now proceed. Is even my a fortiori estimate of how often mass shootings are conducted by multiple attackers wrong? Prove it. I am not certain you can’t. I am only certain you can’t dismiss my estimate with one of your own without a sound argument. I want to see that sound argument. Are any of my a fortiori estimates of the consequent probabilities wrong? Let’s see you prove it. Once again, I am not certain you can’t. I am only certain you can’t do it without a sound argument. So again, I want to see that argument.

if you think there is evidence I’ve overlooked, evidence that argues for multiple shooters: you need to present it and argue for why that evidence is more likely on h than on ~h. And not just more likely, but so much more likely that it overcomes the prior probability against it even on estimates as far against the theory of multiple shooters as you can reasonably admit possible: because you, too, are obligated to measure the extent to which your own estimates could be disputed or in error. You cannot enshrine your own opinions as the truth. If I have to admit the probability that multiple shooters were present could be as high as 1 in 10, you have to admit the probability could be as low as . . . well, how low? You have to honestly answer that question.

And arguing multiple shooters is only the start of the row you have to hoe. You're not just making the claim that there were multiple shooters at this shooting. You're arguing for a specific theory of multiple shooters, with false flag and doctored evidence and so forth. That is going to make your prior probability less likely, because now the theory has to share space with the theory of multiple shooters without a false flag conspiracy. You have to show how multiple shooters+false flag not only explains the evidence, but explains the evidence better than a theory of multiple shooters without false flag, or a theory of a single shooter. And that I suspect you will not be able to do.

[Regina Minx]

Since Bayes’ Theorem is a valid and proven tool of both mathematics and inductive logic (sources)...

Of course, I forgot to give my sources. My kingdom for an edit button~

Peter Lee, Bayesian Statistics: An Introduction, 3rd ed., James Berger, Statistical Decision Theory and Bayesian Analysis, 2nd ed., Colin Howson and Peter Urbach, Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, 2nd ed., José Bernardo and Adrian Smith, Bayesian Theory, J. A. Hartigan, Bayes Theory, Thomas Ferguson, Mathematical Statistics: A Decision Theoretic Approach, and H. Jeffreys, Theory of Probability, 3rd ed.

[TheGlyphstone]

It's really a waste of time to be using logic against a conspiracy theorist. Any evidence they have, real or manufactured, is proof of the conspiracy. Any lack of evidence, or inability to prove the conspiracy, is proof of a cover-up of the conspiracy.

[Regina Minx]

It's really a waste of time to be using logic against a conspiracy theorist. Any evidence they have, real or manufactured, is proof of the conspiracy. Any lack of evidence, or inability to prove the conspiracy, is proof of a cover-up of the conspiracy.

Correctly reasoning and arguing using best methods, evidence, and logic is never a waste of time. I used to entertain a lot of incorrect beliefs about the world, and one of the things that helped change my mind was reading the writings and hearing the talk of skeptics who used argument and evidence to show how some of my sacred cows weren't real.

Even if Drake never comes around on this point, others are here and able to witness and maybe can appreciate the point I was trying to make. And even if my post is universally rejected, ignored, or whatever, I at least got benefit out of it, because I went through the process of really evaluating the claims made. Thinking correctly and logically is as much a skill as being able to run a marathon, and requires training and discipline just like prepping for a marathon. Even if no one else on these forums appreciated the post, the time I put into it is no more wasted than time I spend training for a race.