The Dallas School District is investigating comments made by a former student about a school shooting that never happened.
Video clips and accompanying media coverage appear to show Calvin Polachek, a member of the class of 2020, speaking about surviving a shooting at the Luzerne County school that he claimed left nearly a dozen students dead.
Gun safety advocates organized the February event, held in the Kentucky capitol building. Several articles from the event identified Polachek as a graduate student at the University of Louisville. At the event, he claimed to have lost his best friend, his brother and nine others in a 2017 shooting, according to media accounts.
“The district is aware of a video clip and accompanying article that appears to depict a former Dallas student speaking about a school shooting at Dallas in 2017. Thankfully, that never happened,” according to a statement posted to the district website on Wednesday. “Our district solicitor is supporting an investigation and communication regarding the circulating clip.”
The Dallas Township Police Department on Wednesday issued a strong statement against Polachek’s false claims.
“The widespread sharing of a fabricated tragedy is not only reckless, it is harmful. It fuels unnecessary fear, disrespects the experiences of real victims of school violence and misleads the public with a narrative that has no basis in truth. Let us be absolutely clear: this event never occurred," the statement read. “These false claims are deeply troubling. They undermine the integrity of our school district, erode public trust, and cause real harm to a community that takes great pride in protecting its residents, especially its children.”
The media reports from Kentucky circulated on social media and reached Northeast Pennsylvania this week, outraging community members and graduates of the school.
By Wednesday afternoon, Kentucky media outlets began issuing corrections to their initial stories from February. The Kentucky Lantern, a nonprofit news organization, published a statement from Moms Demand Action and Everytown, which had organized the event.
“Calvin reached out to our Kentucky chapter, shamefully lied to our volunteers and shared a tragic story that we later learned was not true,” according to the statement.
Efforts to reach Polachek were unsuccessful.
