Was 92-year-old Walter Dryden arrested for bribing a police officer because he gave a K-9 unite a biscuit? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a Canadian website that invents tales of bizarre crimes and weird sex acts for entertainment purposes. It did not happen for real.
The story originated from an article published by World News Daily Report on November 2, 2018 titled "Elderly man accused of bribing a police officer for giving a biscuit to a police dog" (archived here) which opened:
A 92-year old man was arrested this morning in St-John, Indiana after he gave a dog biscuit to an animal of the K-9 unit while it was searching a public park for the presence of drugs.
According to the police report, Walter Dryden was sitting on a bench and feeding pigeons in one of the city's public parks when a canine unit of SJPD arrived to search for drugs that were reportedly hidden on the site.
As the police dogs came near him, the old man stood up and despite multiple shouted warnings, gave a biscuit to one of them.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail and they may have thought it was an actual news article:
Elderly man accused of bribing a police officer for giving a biscuit to a police dog
A 92-year old man was arrested this morning in St-John, Indiana after he gave a dog biscuit to an animal of the K-9 unit while it was searching a public park for the presence of drugs. According to the police report, Walter Dryden was sitting on a bench and feeding pigeons in one of the city's publ
The picture used to illustrate the story was actually of 96-year-old Kenneth Collins from California and back in 2016 he was accused of something far more serious than giving a dog a biscuit:
96-year-old California man charged with molesting girls
Southern California man remains jailed, making him one of the oldest inmates in the Orange County jail system
The website World News Daily Report is a well known satire website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:
World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.
It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.
Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.
We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Woman NOT accused of stealing a pumpkin by hiding it in her vagina
- Fake News: Team of Saudi Forensic Scientists Did NOT Concludes Death of Jamal Khashoggi Was Suicide
- Fake News: Chemotherapy Patient NOT Beaten Up By Antifa Mob After Being Mistaken For Neo-Nazi Skinhead
- Fake News: Canadians Do NOT Face Donut Shortage After First Day Of Cannabis Legalization
- Fake News: Woman NOT Arrested For Trying Out Dozens of Sex Toys In Walmart Store
