No Qatari citizen involved in the San Bernardino shooting

San Bernardino Police — Photo for illustrative purposes only

(With translation by Heba Fahmy)

Qatar was briefly in the spotlight this morning after a shooting in San Bernardino, California left 14 people dead at a social services center.

The incident unfolded throughout the afternoon and evening there on Wednesday, Dec. 2.

Police killed two suspects – a man and a woman, who have been identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27. According to the New York Times, the couple was married and had a baby daughter.

However, the police initially wrongly identified the first suspect as Syed Raheel Farook. Shortly after that, a second named appeared on Twitter and was broadcast repeatedly on Fox News:

San Bernardino shooting tweet, deleted after confirmed to be a hoax.

Despite the fact that the name looked like a bastardized form of the Turkish president’s name – rather than one with Arabic origins – the story spread far and fast, especially on conservative American websites.

Conservative American websites quickly ran with the story

Questions about the credibility of that line started immediately:

I sincerely doubt one of the shooters was named Tayyip bin Erdogan. Come on, people.

— Hamza الماساتشوستسي (@hamzadawud) December 3, 2015

Fake name of terror suspect looks like mix of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, with Bin Laden. Prank by an Erdogan enemy perhaps?

— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) December 3, 2015

And police debunked the story barely half an hour later:

SB police clarifying that 2nd name was not released by them. Appears now to be a hoax. We are disregarding.

— Rick Serrano (@RickSerranoLAT) December 3, 2015

This caused those who’d help share the story to backtrack:

LATimes reporter deleted his tweet saying a 29-year-old Qatar citizen was named as a #SanBernardino suspect

— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) December 3, 2015

https://twitter.com/kenbensinger/status/672278513076932608

Then the flat-out mockery began:

@LisaDaftari @smitaprakash @FoxNews can't u get the joke Tayyip Erdogan is president of Turkey.R you a journalist or a hack @MiddleEastEye

— Khaled Almaeena (@KhaledAlmaeena) December 3, 2015

At this point we might as well report the suspect’s name is Keyser Söze. Sheesh.

— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) December 3, 2015

Be on the lookout for Mustafa bin Hummus and his cousin Sheik Yerbouti. #SeeSomethingSaySomething

— Andy Carvin (@acarvin) December 3, 2015

https://twitter.com/roqchams/status/672292677807927297

In Qatar, there was little surprise:

انظروا إلى الغباء والجهل الأمريكي: المشتبه به الثاني في حادث #اطلاق_نار_في_كاليفورنيا قطري ويدعى "طيب بن اردوغان" https://t.co/qIc2dJJrCK

— Reem Al-Harmi ريم الحرمي (@Reem_AlHarmi) December 3, 2015

(Translation: See the American ignorance and stupidity, the name of the second defendant in the California shooting is ”Tayyip Bin Erdogan.”)