Phony Abuse Ring stories not limited to Sanhedria Murchevet

CBS News

Man opens fire in restaurant targeted by anti-Clinton "PizzaGate" fake news conspiracy

A man who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place fired an assault rifle inside the Washington, D.C., restaurant on Sunday injuring no one, police and news reports said.[...]

The suspect entered the location and pointed a firearm in the direction of an employee of the restaurant, the MPD said in a statement. The victim was able to flee and notify police. The suspect fired an undetermined number of shots inside of the restaurant, according to the MPD.

During a post arrest interview, the suspect also revealed that he came to the establishment to self-investigate “Pizza Gate,” the MPD said in a statement.

As CBS affiliate WUSA reported previously, using the hashtag #PizzaGate, an imaginary story about the popular pizza shop was spread across social media and websites associated with the “alt-right” movement, accusing its proprietors of allowing Bill and Hillary Clinton and her former campaign manager to run a child sex slave ring from the business.

As a result, the pizza place has been hammered by thousands of threats and bizarre, unsubstantiated tales about child sex trafficking online for weeks.

WUSA reported that they found two women, who declined to give their names, banging on the patio at the pizza place in late November. The women were looking for the alleged tunnels used to traffic children.

“All of this is an underground tunnel that helps take the kids and transport them back and forth so they can can do these rituals,” said one of them. “They are putting a lot of curses and spells over the city. They are kidnapping the children who are missing. They were never missing because D.C. know where they are.”[...]