For several hours on Friday, Ryan Lanza, the shooter’s brother, was being wrongly and widely accused of being the shooter that killed 20 children and several adults in the Sandy Hook Massacre that morning.

The initial confusion was caused when Adam Lanza was carrying his brother’s ID.

Ryan Lanza was at his desk at Ernst and Young’s Time Square office when he looked up at the TV and saw himself as being the alleged killer and also the report of his mother’s death. A co-worker recounted what happened to MailOnline:

“Lanza quickly told his boss: ‘I need to go.’ He then walked out of his Times Square office. Thirty minutes later, New York Police stormed the office.”

While on the bus home from Port Authority Ryan tried defending himself on his Facebook page:

“IT WASN’T ME I WAS AT WORK IT WASN’T ME.”

“It was my brother. I think my mother is dead. Oh my God.”

One of Ryan’s Facebook friends, Matt Bors, who had never met Lanza was reading his updates and trying to clear his name through his Twitter page. Lanza is a big fan of Bors’ comics and as he saw that Ryan Lanza was obviously not the killer, he tried to make it known. For this, he was publicly attacked.

He wrote on his blog:

“One demanded to know how I could be friends with such a monster. Could I help a random internet sleuth create a ‘psychological profile’? Did I see warning signs in Ryan? Why did I suspiciously post cartoons about mass shootings only days before? That was very tasteless.

A text to my phone from an unknown number read ‘looks like this killer is a fan of yours.’ A Twitter user declared me a ‘snitch’ for sharing Ryan’s post. Someone accused me of having something to do with the killings, ‘which you take delight in,’ they wrote, and hoped the FBI would hold me accountable.”

He has since received a few apologies, only a few.

Paul Hudson | Elite.