Think Progress says NRA gave $10,000 for training Parkland murderer, then get brutal fact check so fast their heads are spinning

The left-leaning website ThinkProgress was criticized for a report linking the National Rifle Association to Parkland, Fla. shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, who has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

On Friday, ThinkProgress published an article that claimed the NRA gave $10,000 to help train Cruz on firing a rifle, but the headline did not mention that the donation went to Marjory Stoneman High School’s JROTC program, in which Cruz was enrolled.

The article was titled “The NRA donated $10,000 to help train the Parkland shooting suspect to use a rifle,” and featured a sub-headline that noted Cruz, a former student at the school, “practiced on indoor ranges shooting at targets the size of coin.”

The ThinkProgress piece mentioned in subsequent paragraphs that the four-person marksmanship team in which Cruz participated was part of the school’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

Parkland shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz. (Broward County Jail via AP).

The $10,000 donation was made out to the Stoneman Douglas JROTC–not to Cruz directly.

The article also noted further down that Cruz and his teammates trained with air rifles, not actual fire arms.

Other news outlets used similarly misleading headlines in reporting the NRA donation to the high school’s JROTC team.

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When the shooting broke out on Wednesday, two members of the Stoneman Douglas JROTC program protected their classmates by using a kevlar curtain to shield the room from gunfire.

A number of readers pointed out the discrepancy between ThinkProgress’ headline and the story’s reporting.

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