Did police identify Samuel Hyde as the shooter at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin? No, that's not true: At a press conference on December 16, 2024, the Madison police chief identified the shooter as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow "who went by the name Samantha." Since 2015, internet trolls have recycled a hoax claiming that "Sam Hyde is the shooter" after mass shootings.
The mislabeled photo appeared in a post (archived here) on X on December 16, 2024. It was captioned:
Shooter has been identified as Samuel Hyde, a trans student. Pray for the victims. When you put disturbed children on hormone blockers and sexually mutilate them, you're not curing them, you're creating potential school shooters. #Wisconsin #Madison #schoolshooting
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Dec 17 17:11:34 2024 UTC)
The scope of this fact check will not cover whether the shooter was trans, a question posed to Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes at a press conference. He responded:
I don't know whether Natalie was transgender or not and quite frankly I don't think that's even important.
The shooter at the Abundant Life Christian School was not identified as Samuel Hyde. At a press conference that was livestreamed on YouTube on December 16, 2024, by Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, Barnes said at the 9:56-minute mark:
The shooter has now been identified as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow who went by the name Samantha. She was a student at the school and evidence suggests she died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The image on the right side of the post on X (pictured above) shows Natalie Rupnow. The Facebook account (archived here) of her father, Jeff Rupnow, features photos of her in both the cover photo and profile photo (pictured below). In the August 17, 2024, cover image, she is pictured with her back to the camera shooting at a sportsman's club. In that photo she is wearing a black concert T-shirt from the band KMFDM -- this is the same band name as in the T-shirt logo (pictured above) in Natalie Rupnow's selfie.
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Dec 17 20:14:08 2024 UTC)
The photo on the left side of the X post is not Rupnow. A reverse image search with Google Lens brings up many results that predate the December 16, 2024, shooting at the Wisconsin school. One result points to a Fandom Wikitubia, and an entry about the comedian Sam Hyde, known online as "HydeWars" (archived on February 8, 2024 here). Included in the gallery of photos is an unverified photo labeled "Sam Hyde when he was younger."
The website knowyourmeme.com shows an August 21, 2023, screenshot of this photo of a young Sam Hyde coupled with a photo of the older Hyde (pictured below) as part of another meme called "Twink Death" (archived here).
(Source: knowyourmeme.com screenshot taken on Tue Dec 17 19:29:16 2024 UTC)
Knowyourmeme.com also has an entry about "Sam Hyde is the shooter hoaxes" (archived here), which have circulated since 2015.
At the time this was written, FactCheck.org had reviewed the same claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims including the name Sam Hyde can be found here.
