Half-Staff Flag Sparks Trump Death Rumors – Here’s What Really Happened”

WASHINGTON, DC: When the Unit­ed States flag was low­ered to half-staff at the White House and across all fed­er­al build­ings, some online spec­u­lat­ed it was tied to base­less rumors of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s death.

How­ev­er, the rea­son for the half-staff flag was an announce­ment made by Don­ald Trump him­self, fol­low­ing the trag­ic inci­dent that unfold­ed in Min­neapo­lis on Wednes­day, August 27.

US flags flown at half-staff as tribute to Minneapolis shooting victims

Sev­er­al X users claimed that the US flag at the White House was flown at half-mast and linked it to reports of Don­ald Trump skip­ping a cab­i­net meet­ing. There were also claims that he had not been seen for “sev­er­al” days, lead­ing to phras­es like “It Hap­pened” and “Trump is Dead” trend­ing online

How­ev­er, the rea­son for the flags being flown at half-staff was unre­lat­ed to the POTUS. In fact, Trump him­self announced that US flags would be low­ered as a mark of respect. Notably, fly­ing a flag at half-staff means low­er­ing it to about the mid­dle of the flag­pole to express grief, respect, or mourn­ing, espe­cial­ly after a death or major tragedy

The tra­di­tion orig­i­nat­ed from naval cus­toms and sym­bol­izes a nation’s sor­row, often after the pass­ing of impor­tant lead­ers or dur­ing days of remem­brance. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the flag isn’t placed exact­ly halfway down but slight­ly above, to leave room for the “invis­i­ble flag of death” above it.

Fol­low­ing the Min­neapo­lis school shoot­ing, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump ordered that the Amer­i­can flag be flown at half-staff across all fed­er­al build­ings and instal­la­tions until sun­set on August 31. 

Minneapolis mass shooting kills two children

On Wednes­day, a 23-year-old trans­gen­der, Robin West­man, opened fire at Annun­ci­a­tion Catholic School in Min­neapo­lis, Min­neso­ta, killing two chil­dren, Fletch­er Merkel and Harp­er Myos­ki, and injur­ing 18 oth­ers. The shoot­er was lat­er found dead, and offi­cials said the death was due to a self-inflict­ed gun­shot wound

Recent reports revealed that West­man had a his­to­ry of men­tal health strug­gles, includ­ing a call to their home dur­ing their teenage years relat­ed to a men­tal health con­cern. These rev­e­la­tions came after a series of dis­turb­ing YouTube videos and a man­i­festo post­ed online were found, in which West­man expressed deep per­son­al tur­moil.

Accord­ing to a search war­rant, the Min­neapo­lis school shoot­er had been dri­ving a van reg­is­tered to their father.

Author­i­ties found the shooter’s body behind the church, dressed in black tac­ti­cal gear, and two firearms, believed to be long guns, were recov­ered beside the body.

Mean­while, a sub­se­quent search of West­man’s father’s home uncov­ered a Con­dor tac­ti­cal vest with var­i­ous attach­ments “not relat­ed to law enforce­ment or secu­ri­ty,” along with two exter­nal media stor­age devices and oth­er doc­u­ments.

The shooter’s father revealed to police that West­man had recent­ly gone through a breakup “with a sig­nif­i­cant and/or roman­tic part­ner” and had been stay­ing at a friend’s home.

He added that the shoot­er once attend­ed Annun­ci­a­tion School and that the shooter’s moth­er, his for­mer spouse, had pre­vi­ous­ly worked there