Fact Check-An elementary school teacher named ‘Bernie Gores’ did not die at the Uvalde shooting
By
Reuters Fact Check
4 Min Read
Social media users are recirculating a repeatedly debunked claim that a man named Bernie Gores has died in a recent international incident. Over the past year alone, “Bernie Gores” has been falsely labeled on social media as having died in Afghanistan and Ukraine. This time, users claim he died sheltering students from the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Social media users compare these falsified reports from different incidents as evidence the shooting was a false flag or that news media are not accurately reporting the shooting.
Examples can be seen (
here), (
here) and (
here).
The text in one post reads: “See this guy died twice, once in Afghanistan in 2021 and then again yesterday at the fake elementary school shooting,,,, please wake up before we lose our freedom. CNN is always sloppy and recycle the same crisis actors”.
A “crisis actor” is someone who participates in training sessions for first responders (
here), but the term is also often used in conspiracy theories to say actors are pretending to be victims in breaking news catastrophes or events, thus implying they are staged or fake.
But Bernie Gores is not a crisis actor, and these news reports about him are not real.
Some posts include an image from an imposter “NBC News Australia” Twitter account (
here) with the text: “#BREAKING A victim of the #Texas mass shooting has been identified as Bernie Gores, a 36 year-old elementary school teacher. Rest In Peace”
The unverified page was created in May 2022 and had 3 followers at the time of writing this article.
Reuters has previously debunked claims that news organizations had reported the same man being killed in Ukraine in February 2022 amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (
here), and in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021 (
here).
The claims have stemmed from a Twitter account impersonating a news outlet, which was created recently and not verified.
No such story exists on the NBC News website or Twitter page (
here), (
twitter.com/NBCNews)
The man in the photographs is a YouTuber called Jordie Jordan (
here).
VERDICT
False. An elementary school teacher named Bernie Gores was not killed during the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. This claim is a hoax that has repeatedly recirculated during major news events.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work
here .
