Michigan Father Shot His Family Police Say. His Daughter Blames Qanon.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office identified the man as 53-year-old Igor Lanis of Walled Lake, a small community 30 miles northwest of Detroit. Lannis had no history of violence or protective orders against him, officials said, but according to his youngest daughter, who was not home at the time of the attack, Lannis in recent years had grown increasingly in the ward of the extended and baseless conspiracy movement that is known. as QAnon. Rebecca Lanis, 21, told The Detroit News on Sunday that after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, her father began consuming “crazy ideas” online, including conspiracy theories about vaccines and Trump. “No one could tell him to tell them,” he told the agency. An epidemic of conspiracy theories, fueled by social media and self-serving politicians, is tearing families apart. On Sunday, police received a 911 call shortly after 4 a.m. from a young woman who said she had just been shot by her father, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. When officers arrived at the scene and moved toward the home after hearing a gunshot, Lanis came out the front door armed with a shotgun and began shooting at the officers. The police retaliated by fatally shooting Lanis. Officers then saw Lanis’ 25-year-old daughter Rachel try to crawl out the front door before being dragged to safety. He was later treated and listed in stable condition. Rachel Lanis, who had made the initial 911 call, told police her father shot her and killed her mother. Tina Lanis, 56, was found dead inside the home with multiple gunshot wounds to the back from an apparent attempt to run out the front door, according to the sheriff’s office. The family’s dog was also found dead with multiple gunshot wounds. Rebecca Lanis, who was staying at a friend’s house for a birthday and was not home during the shooting, did not immediately respond to a request for an interview Monday. But in a Reddit forum for people who have lost touch with loved ones because of QAnon, she unequivocally blamed the conspiracy theory movement for her family’s tragedy. “I want the media to call out Q because this is all their fault,” he wrote. She lamented how her father’s fall down the QAnon “rabbit hole” changed him from a loving, fun-loving and carefree man to someone who would “get really pissed off about the smallest things” and warned of imaginary dangers in modern medicine or the 5G towers. “It’s like being possessed by a demon,” he wrote. The sheriff’s office said the incident is under active investigation and has not released a motive. QAnon gained momentum as a viral online movement around the end of 2017. Its followers expected posts from an anonymous figure known as “Q,” who claimed to be a high-level government figure privy to “Deep State” secrets. The movement has shifted its focus and evolved over the years, but has been linked to an increasing number of criminal incidents, including the January 6, 2021 siege at the US Capitol, where many QAnon followers were arrested. QAnon reformed Trump’s party and radicalized the faithful. The siege of the Capitol may just be the beginning. In a 2019 fact sheet, the FBI classified QAnon among “anti-government, identity-based, and fringe political conspiracy theories” that are “highly likely to motivate some domestic extremists to engage in criminal, sometimes violent, activity.” Last year, a California man obsessed with QAnon confessed to killing his 2-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter with a speargun after being “enlightened” by the group. Matthew Taylor Coleman told FBI interviews that he had received signs that this wife “possessed snake DNA” and passed it on to their children. Jack Bratich, an associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University’s School of Communication and Information who researches QAnon, said the group may be particularly attractive to people destabilized by a mass trauma — such as the coronavirus pandemic — or that others generally cling to QAnon as a way of coping with a changing world where they feel less comfortable. “QAnon gave some people a sense of purpose and a narrative that almost guaranteed a certain kind of future,” Bratich said. To maintain this, followers may act and behave in almost paranoid ways. “They may act like they’re protecting a sanctuary and treat other people – even family – as the enemy,” he said.