Police Officers

Is a video showing a suspect climbing on top of an SUV to taunt police during a car chase in Los Angeles authentic? No, that's not true: The original footage of the car chase, captured by a local news station, does not show the driver climbing onto the roof of a white SUV to dance and taunt police in L.A.…

Is a video showing a transgender Florida student fake, AI-generated, or staged? No, that's not true: The footage is body camera video from the University of Central Florida Police Department. The incident occurred in February 2025 and involved then-student Jarrett Vick, who was upset about how police used pronouns when referring to them during an encounter that resulted in their…

Is Timothy Donahue the ICE agent who shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine on July 13, 2026? No, that's not true: Neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor the Maine Attorney General's Office has released the identity of the federal immigration agent involved in the shooting. A news report in April 2026 also identifies Donahue as a Border Patrol…

Does a crisp in-focus photograph help identify the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who were on the scene of a shooting in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13, 2026? No, that's not true: According to the content detection tool at Hive Moderation this image was AI-generated. Only some elements of the image align with details at the scene in the…

Does a photo show a police officer who reportedly shot a rabbi during a shooting in Montreal in late June 2026? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the woman in the image is a member of the Montreal police; she is Dasha Nekrasova, an American actress, filmmaker, and podcast co-host. Additionally, the shooting victim was not a…

Did U.K.'s Prime Minister Keir Starmer publicly threaten to arrest X owner Elon Musk along with other "336 million Americans"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories reviewed Starmer's public comments about Musk and did not find anything remotely close to what social media attributed to the prime minister. The claim about hundreds of millions to be arrested is implausible on…

Does a video from June 2026 show a fire lit by rioters in Belfast, Northern Ireland after a knife attack incident involving a refugee from Sudan? No, that's not true: The video predates the June 8, 2026, knife attack in Belfast. Video of the individuals setting fire to a home was originally published on X almost a year ago, on…

Does a real image show the "claw" hand of a police officer arresting fatally stabbed student Henry Nowak in Southampton, England, in December 2025? No, that's not true: The image circulating on social media is an edited screenshot from a video released by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary. Lead Stories reviewed the original video and found that at…

Did police find a male prostitute dead in the Indiana home of Mike Pence? No, that's not true: There is no news reporting of an incident such as this. This false news story originated from a Facebook page that lists its category as "comedian". The story has spread to other social media platforms without the comedy disclaimer. The story originated…

Is the story of a Memphis man arrested for scratching off every scratch-off ticket at a Germantown Exxon station real? No, that's not true: Lead Stories did not find any records corroborating the tale, which originated on social media platforms. Two AI detection tools concluded the text was AI-generated. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published by @Soaringeagle45…