In the 1999 cult film “Fight Club,” a character named Robert Paulson was shot by police (details here).
On Jan. 6, 2021, a rumor circulated on Twitter that a woman named Roberta Paulsen had been shot at the U.S. Capitol. While the incident was true (and widely covered by media), the Capitol rioter killed by a single police bullet was actually Ashli Babbitt; to see how she became “Roberta Paulsen,” go to article here.
On Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, a rumor circulated in rightwing blogosphere — Daily Beast says here that Sara Carter, a Fox News contributor, “created” the story — that an elderly woman with a walker was trampled to death by mounted police breaking up the protester occupation of Ottawa, Canada (see, e.g., posting here). Even the venerable conservative magazine National Review repeated that story (here).
She quickly acquired the name “Roberta Paulsen” (see, e.g., posting here).
Fictional movie character Robert Paulson, aka Roberta Paulsen, sure gets around.
Nobody in the media could locate her, or anyone else, in an Ottawa hospital or morgue with hoofprints on their body. Turns out the “trampling” incident was fiction, too. The Toronto Star, a reputable newspaper (profile here), reported (here):
“Ottawa police also said they are actively seeking to combat misinformation being circulated about the protests and police actions. They accused people of deliberately doctoring photos to suggest police horses trampled people on Friday, including a woman with a walker. [Police Chief] Bell said that is not what happened, and the people knocked down were able to get back up and start protesting again.”
(A video at the National Review link above, if you look closely, shows her being pushed from behind — where there were protesters — and other sources reported she was pushed by a protester.)
Who do you believe, the police chief, or screeching rightwing bloggers? Where’s the dead body? And how did Roberta Paulsen, after being killed by police at the U.S. Capitol, manage to show up in Ottawa to be killed again by police there?
This isn’t an isolated incident of rightwing lying, just a very clumsy one. Rightwing false rumors are common. The internet is drowning in them. There are countless examples, some of which — like the twice-killed Roberta Paulsen — are downright silly.
But that doesn’t stop the right’s credulous followers from believing them. They believe a lot of false crap about Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, too.
Photo: The much-killed Roberta Paulsen, in red jacket, lies dead (again) after being squashed by a police horse
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Updates: On Sunday, February 20, 2022, Ottawa police acknowledged a 49-year-old woman was injured (her family said she suffered a broken clavicle) from an “interaction” with a police horse which police described as a “collision” (story here). Ottawa’s chief of paramedics said a total of 18 people were transported to hospitals from the secure zone with “non-life threatening injuries” (same link).
Ottawa police also said a bicycle was thrown at a horse, causing it to trip, “further down the line” from where two protesters fell then “got up and walked away” (story here). It’s unclear whether the 49-year-old woman was injured in either of these incidents. However, a video accompanying this linked story appears to show the same woman unharmed after the incident.