Shootings

Do photos and social media accounts of Austin Tucker Martin reveal him to be transgender? No, that's not true: The photos purporting to show Martin, who was killed while allegedly armed and breaking into President Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club, are mislabeled. They show an unidentified person who does not resemble verified family photos of Martin. No credible reporting about Austin…

You might have seen or heard rumors about ICE agents being deployed at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, to help provide security. The Lead Stories Rome office looked into what is actually happening, so you know what is going on if you see social media posts about it. Agents from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),…

Did NBA star Anthony Edwards donate a $514,000 game check to ICE? No, that's not true: The account that posted the message is run by a writer for 'The Simpsons' using the name "Gene Parmesan," a character from 'Arrested Development.' Edwards made a comment about ICE in Minnesota that was criticized for not being more forceful against the raids, but…

Was the person who shot Charlie Kirk identified as "Samden Hindenburg", a pagan fundamentalist refugee from Ukraine? No, that's not true: A viral post recycled the meme in circulation since 2015 that casts the comedian Sam Hyde as an attacker after mass shootings in the U.S. or abroad. No credible media organization reported that anyone named "Samden Hindenburg" was connected…

Does a viral social media chart correctly represent the portion of the transgender population that had committed a mass shooting or the share of mass shootings according to gender identification between 2015 and 2025? No, that's not true: The charts supply no source for those numbers. Organizations that professionally track mass shootings using police records and public information had not,…

Is Sam Hyde the perpetrator of a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis? No, that's not true:A viral post recycled the meme in circulation since 2015 that casts the comedian Sam Hyde as an attacker after mass shootings in the U.S. or abroad. No credible media organization reported that anyone named "Sam Hyde" was connected to the events in…

Were the Minnesota shootings targeting state lawmakers and their family members motivated by leftist political views of the suspect, Vance Luther Boelter? While many details remain unclear as of June16, 2025, available evidence doesn't support this theory. Here is what we know about Boelter's political affiliation. A rumor about Boelter's left-leaning views appeared in a post (archived here) on X,…

Is the name of a suspect in the Graz shooting Samuel Haider? No, that's not true: A viral post recycled the meme in circulation since 2015 that casts the comedian Sam Hyde as an attacker after mass shootings in the U.S. or abroad. No credible media organization reported that anyone named "Samuel Haider" was connected to the events in Graz.…

Did the New York Times publish a story headlined "Pope Leo XIV Was a Founding Member of the 2020 Anarchist Portland Autonomous Zone Known as CHAZ"? No, that's not true: A faked screenshot of such a headline also claimed Robert Francis Prevost spent time writing for an "anarchist zine" in Portland about how to "fist-fight police officers". No such article…

Did an image shared on social media show the shooter during an April 17, 2025 mass shooting on the campus of Florida State University? No, that's not true: The image of the armed man in a brown hoodie first appeared online in 2023. It shows the Army reservist who killed 18 and wounded 13 in Lewiston, Maine on October 25,…