George Floyd

Does the music video "Try That In A Small Town" by country music singer Jason Aldean only contain "real news footage," as he asserted in a public response to criticism that his song and video promote violence and allude to timeworn lynching threats? No, that's not true: Not every clip in the video is news footage. There are several stock…

Does a video show military vehicles and personnel moving through West Hollywood during the summer of 2023? No, that's not true: This footage is from the summer of 2020. The video was posted on TikTok on June 2, 2020, around the time that National Guard troops were patrolling the streets of Los Angeles after protests over the death of George…

Does the video "Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening" assemble the "forbidden puzzle pieces to reveal the big picture of what's really happening in America and beyond"? No, that's not true: The video repeats an unsubstantiated claim of a plan by global elites to replace national sovereignty with a one-world government and rehashes previously debunked false and misleading claims made by…

Did "leftist activists" loot a Target store in response to the 2023 Target boycott started by right-wingers? No, that's not true: In the tweet making that claim, the image is from 2020, three years before the protest over LGBTQ+ merchandise. The Minneapolis Target was ransacked in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. There are multiple articles from 2020…

Did billionaire philanthropist George Soros fund the purchase of voting machines in order to rig the 2022 midterm elections? No, that's not true: Elections are funded by taxpayer dollars and Soros has no connections to voting machine or voting software companies. The claim appeared in a November 6, 2022, Instagram post that uses a long string of hashtags for a…

Did a lethal amount of fentanyl kill George Floyd while he was being subdued by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin? No, that's not true: The autopsy report from the Hennepin County, Minnesota, medical examiner's office said the cause of death was "Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression." The claim appeared in an Instagram post on October…

Did the television show "The Simpsons" predict Queen Elizabeth II's death in 2022? No, that's not true: An image showing the queen in a coffin with the dates 1926-2022 is not a real still from "The Simpsons." The queen's death does not appear in any episodes of this series. Lead Stories previously debunked a claim that used a similar image…

Did a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer find a suspicious pile of bricks in a back alley and were these bricks placed by leftists in preparation for rioting? No, that's not true: An audio recording of police officers speaking with their dispatcher is authentic, but there is no evidence that there was anything out of the ordinary about the bricks. Declaring…

Were "50,000 secret USA troops" just deputized by Donald Trump? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that any service members have been deputized by former President Donald Trump and made "Federal Marshals." A parody Twitter account made the original claim and used non-related social media posts to make the false connection. Trump is no longer the commander in…