A former Luzerne County student gave an emotional address to a crowd at the Kentucky State Capitol earlier this year, delivering a harrowing account of surviving a mass shooting that killed his best friend, brother and nine others at Dallas High School.
The only problem, authorities say, is that it never happened.
Calvin Polacheck, a former student baseball player who went on to attend Bentley University in Massachusetts and is now a graduate student at the University of Kentucky, was recently quoted in Kentucky media as saying his brother, best friend and nine others were murdered at Dallas High School in 2017.
“A week later, I had to go back to that school, and that was the worst part because you had to walk past that spot where I saw my best friend and pretend it was all normal. It was not normal,” Polachek said during a February rally for the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “Folks, that’s been eight years, and I’ve been talking about this every single day since then for eight years. Eight years of talking about this, and there’s been nothing that’s changed.”
Polachek’s comments were quoted in a news article by the local Fox affiliate in Lexington, as well as in an article by the Kentucky Lantern news outlet.
The speech drew swift criticism from Polachek’s former classmates, some of whom took to Facebook to note that a mass shooting never occurred during their time in Dallas.
“Apparently I survived a school shooting,” user Josh Specht wrote. “Calvin Polachek is lying about a school shooting and it’s disgusting trying to use this fake story to ban guns.”
In a statement issued Wednesday, the Dallas School District said its administrators were aware of the mass shooting claim and that, “Thankfully, that never happened.”
“The discussion on the clip about Dallas and school violence is not factually accurate,” the statement continued. “Our district solicitor is supporting an investigation and communication regarding the circulating clip.”
Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said he first heard about Polachek’s speech on Wednesday and that, while at first glance the comments did not appear to constitute a crime, he planned to look into the matter further.
“Lying about being a victim is disgraceful and makes light of the immeasurable grief and pain suffered by true survivors and the victims’ families,” Sanguedolce said.
Messages left for Moms Demand Action and Democratic Kentucky state Rep. Adam Moore — who also spoke at the rally in support of legislation that would offer tax credits to residents who take a gun safety course — did not immediately return messages Wednesday inquiring about the vetting process that allowed Polachek to deliver remarks about a mass shooting that never occurred.
Source: Berkshire mont
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