The Wire producer and longtime Baltimore chronicler David Simon ripped into conspiracists spreading unfounded theories that today’s tragic and deadly collapse of the city’s Francis Scott Key Bridge could be a terrorist attack.
Simon, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun before creating Homicide: Life On The Street, reserved a special ire for Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling the rumor-mongering congresswoman a “complete submoronic pratfall of a human being.”
“Are you intentional or just an accident?,” Simon asked Greene in a post on X/Twitter after the Republican asked about the cargo ship’s crash into the bridge, “Is this an intentional attack or an accident?”
Earlier today, William DelBagno, the FBI Special Agent in Charge, said there are no indications of terrorism. But that didn’t stop the conspiracy-minded from taking to social media – or Simon from taking them on.
See the X posts below.
In response to one post – which has been restricted to followers – Simon wrote, “There are already video and radio transmissions online suggesting a series of power failures and loss of steering on the vessel. You can certainly speculate wildly and no one can stop you, but doing so doesn’t make you any less the asshole here.”
Told by one X user that Fox News was speculating over whether migrants or diversity hires played a role in the tragedy, Simon said, “Shitheels, down to the last debased newsroom intern.”
When another poster asked, “Isn’t it possible that this was a deliberate terrorist attack rather than a tragic accident?,” Simon retorted, “It’s possible that you’re a useless shitheel rando on an internet hellsite speculating wildly and without regard to what is already known by authorities in Baltimore. Quick, have someone fund your podcast. You’ll go far.”
To a poster who called Baltimore a “mismanaged, failed state,” Simon offered a well-worded correction: “The port is a state-run entity and nothing whatsoever to do with Baltimore municipal government, you absolute submoron.”
To Anthony Sabatini, the former Florida congressman who wrote “DEI did this” – referring to diversity, equity and inclusion – Simon took no prisoners. “Your mother did you, but after a hard life of service on a truck-stop lot, can we really hold her loosened, battered womb responsible for dropping you head-first on the Winnebago floor and burdening our society with another empty, racist demagogue thereafter? We cannot.”
Earlier today, President Joe Biden, who said he will go to Baltimore, said all indications were that the episode was a “terrible accident.”
The Dali cargo ship issued a mayday call in the moments before the crash, with crew telling Baltimore’s Harbor Control that the vessel had lost power and propulsion. The mayday is credited with allowing officials to stop traffic onto the bridge before the collapse. Eight people – all construction workers fixing potholes on the bridge – fell into the water, with two, at last count, rescued.