Boca candidate blames hackers for critical posts
A candidate for Boca Raton mayor is facing criticism for a social media post that called Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students speaking out about gun violence “moronic teenagers whose latest hobby is eating laundry detergent.”
Glenn Gromann said someone hacked his Facebook account, and he never wrote any of the words that have sparked outrage on social media.
“They took control of my account,” said Gromann, a Republican. “They sent a zillion messages out under my name. It’s absolutely insane.”
He said he’s reporting the breach to the FBI. Jim Marshall, an agency spokesman, declined to comment Friday, citing FBI policy not to confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.
One of the posts from Gromann’s account referenced a CNN town hall meeting this week in which students questioned elected leaders about gun control.
“Not going to help CNN ratings exploiting moronic teenagers whose latest hobby is eating laundry detergent,” the post read. “More people are killed by illegal aliens and MS-13 style drug gangs on an annualized basis than all school shootings combined! They are just doing it one at a time.”
Another post under his name was made to the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Boca Raton community page. That post read: “They didn’t get elected and I don’t care what some 18 year old who has never done anything in his or her life like serve in the military thinks!”
Gromann said the posts don’t reflect his views and were deleted as soon as he regained control of his Facebook account. He said he doesn’t know who might have hacked his account, but he thinks it could have been “politically motivated.”
“Maybe the Russians are hacking local elections now for all I know,” Gromann said.
Gromann has announced his candidacy for the mayor’s seat being vacated by Susan Haynie, who is running for Palm Beach County Commission.
Boca City Council Member Scott Singer has declared his candidacy for the March 2019 mayor’s election, along with Bernard Korn. Singer said none of his social media accounts has been compromised, and he’s not personally concerned about hackers interfering in the election.
“I would hope no one in Boca Raton would make such a despicable statement,” Singer said.
Eric Garner, a broadcast teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said he’s appalled by efforts to discredit the students who have protested and made their voices heard.
“They are eloquent,” he said. “They are intelligent. They are everything we want the next generation to be.” Staff writers Marci Shatzman and Susannah Bryan contributed to this report.