crisis actor

noun3

1. •
   A person employed to portray a disaster victim during emergency drills.
2. •
   A person who secretly acts out a role, such as victim or mourner, as part of a staged depiction of a deadly event, particularly a mass shooting.

   • The victims in the shooting? They were “crisis actors” hired to promote the story as a pretext to impose tighter gun restrictions, the theory goes. — 2016
3. •
   A participant in an international crisis.

   • Finally, the greater the proportion of nondemocracies among crisis actors, the more likely it becomes that escalation will occur. — 2000