Twitter, as usual, is happy to enforce censorship against conservatives, but leaves the platform wide open for leftist doxxers. The media outsourced finding the Capitol rioters to “internet detectives” with lots of calls like, “Internet, do your thing”.
And the thing was done.
(Note, not everyone in the Capitol was a rioter. It’s important to distinguish between the people who forced their way in and those who were allowed in. This will be an important issue in the trials.)
David Quintavalle didn’t do it.
The retired Chicago firefighter from Mount Greenwood — whom social media trolls called a “terrorist” and accused of fatally wielding a fire extinguisher that killed a cop as a mob of Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — was grocery shopping and celebrating his wife’s birthday in Chicago, Patch has learned.
Twitter exploded with unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that Quintavalle — who retired from the fire department in 2016 after 32 years — was the bearded “#extinguisherman” in a surveillance video wearing a “CFD” stocking cap wanted for questioning and “soon to be arrested” by the FBI regarding the fatal beating of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.
You can guess the rest.
By Tuesday night, Quintavalle began getting angry calls from people saying he’s a “f—— murderer” who belongs in jail. TV news reporters had staked out his house. Chicago police dispatched a patrol car to keep watch overnight, as well, his lawyer said.
Attorney John Nisivaco told Patch on Wednesday he’s presented the FBI and U.S. Justice Department with evidence that Quintavalle isn’t the person depicted in the video at the U.S. Capitol.
“Social media has killed David Quintavalle. This has been an absolute disaster to him personally and his family. There’s a cop car outside his house. It’s over a picture that kind of looks like him because people sitting behind a keyboard with no proof or evidence are throwing out these tweets, and they’re wrong. Holy smokes, it’s eye-opening how terrifying social media can be when something like this happens.”
Social media can be toxic. It’s not entirely one-sided.
A false alt-right social media claim that Aaron Mostofsky, one of the men arrested, is Antifa has also been making the rounds.
Mostofsky is the son of a Democrat judge, but he and his brother are staunch conservatives. His brother is the vice president of the South Brooklyn Conservative Club. He’s a registered Democrat, but that’s commonplace in New York City because there’s barely a functioning GOP, and the Dem primaries actually select who runs things.
Of course it’s a lot easier to get a lie rolling than it is to stop it once it’s underway. And the media’s decision to outsource its witch hunt to lefty activists led to predictably horrible results for which no one will be held accountable even as Democrats call for Republican accountability.
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