Knocking Down A Lie About A Midtown Murder And The I-85 Fire

A fake news piece has been circulating through social media, trying to tie the death of Atlanta attorney Trinh Huynh to the I-85 bridge collapse. It is a lie.

Trinh Huynh, a staff attorney for UPS, was killed by a lunatic in Midtown earlier this week, shot dead in a crosswalk outside of Taco Mac on Peachtree Street.

Police arrested a suspect, Raylon Browning, a couple of days ago. No motive has been announced, but he is also accused of stabbing two other, unconnected people.

The story — to which I will not link — suggests that Huynh filed a request for documents about the bridge after the collapse and was killed to stall her inquiries, that ISIS is responsible for the bridge destruction and that there’s a Russian FSB report about it.

NONE of this is true.

The PACER court filings site shows no activity by UPS or Huynh at the federal courthouse in Atlanta between the fire and her death. She was an expert in construction law, which is why the hoax article is seductive.

A good hoax takes bits of information that is true and weaves it into a narrative that might be believable, particularly when it’s tied to sensational breaking news events.

But it is a hoax. 

A million people have seen the damned plastic coils stored under the bridge over the years — there’s nothing particularly mysterious about what fueled the fire. And even if there was an FSB report, which no one has published … why the hell would we believe it, today?

Browning, the alleged shooter, appears to be having a psychotic break. Channel 2 reported that he “beat another inmate, punching him four times before officers shocked him with a Taser.” They took him to Grady when he wouldn’t stop trying to gnaw his own arm off.

The author of the piece, “Sorcha Faal,” has an entry in RationalWiki. The site has been presenting outlandish conspiracy theories for more than a decade.

But three separate people sent me the story to “verify.” And as I started to look through social media, it became clear that the Pizzagate idiots had hold of this — Huynh’s work on refugee issues somehow pressed the sex trafficking button for them, and suddenly the urge to “connect all the dots” led to the hoax being widely shared.

As an aside, it’s worth reminding people that former refugees in America — like Huynh — are more likely to be on the receiving end of crime than causing it.

I shouldn’t have to knock stuff like this down, because the stupidity of it should be obvious. But this is the age we live in. Trinh Huynh deserves better than this.