Is Derek Chauvin a crisis actor who has been involved in other "false flag" incidents, including the Boston marathon bombing and Sandy Hook massacre? No, that's not true. A meme and a video have gone viral claiming the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with second-degree murder in the death of George Floyd is part of the "shadow army" of "crisis actors" used by the "shadow government" to stage fake attacks. Chauvin is not in the person in images from the Boston and Sandy Hook attacks used in the meme.
The claim originated as a post (archived here) published on Facebook on May 28, 2020. It opened:
The Shadow Government has a private army... Wake up!
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Jun 16 19:50:59 2020 UTC)
Derek Chauvin is the former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer charged on May 29, 2020, in the death of George Floyd. Floyd died on May 25, and Chauvin was pictured kneeling on his back during an arrest. Chauvin is incarcerated at the Oak Park Heights Maximum Security Prison in Minnesota as of June 16, 2020, Fox News reported.
The meme uses two images to claim that Chauvin is a crisis actor. One photo is of three men in black jackets and tan pants running. The meme says it is from "Boston Bombing" and claims one of the men is Chauvin.
The photograph of "Boston Bombing" is from the April 15, 2013, attack and is of three men who are members of the National Guard's Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team.
Don Veitch, the director of public affairs for the Massachusetts National Guard, told Lead Stories in an interview that all three men in the photograph were Massachusetts National Guardsmen at the time. Veitch said this about the men in the picture and the comparison to Chauvin:
None of them are any police officers now or ever in Minneapolis so they are definitely not the same people. They are absolutely not the same people."
Veitch told Lead Stories that National Guard Lt. Col. Matthew Woolums is the man on the left-hand side of the photograph with the hat.
Woolums was in command of the National Guard unit at the time the photograph was taken in 2013. Veitch confirmed to Lead Stories the other two men were members of the unit as well. One is still serving and the other has left the National Guard.
The second photograph of three men in uniform also does not show Chauvin. This picture is a screen grab from a CBS News interview of three officers from the Newtown Police Department following the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
Here is the video from CBS News from December 24, 2012.
Officer Michael McGowan is on the left, Sgt. David Kullgren is in the middle and Officer Liam Seabrook on the right.
Kullgren has been promoted to lieutenant since the video was taken. Here is an image of him in local news when the promotion was announced.
Here is a news story about Kullgren and an image from the Newtown Bee in 2018.
Chauvin is not one of the three officers from Newtown who responded to the Sandy Hook shooting.
A video that has gone viral on Facebook also claims to show that Chauvin is "no cop" and is a "crisis actor" and shows multiple reasons why this story is a "false flag," meaning Chauvin just goes around the country when there are disasters but is not really involved with the situations.
Here is that video on Facebook with the message "I love this s**t!!!"
The video also shows the photograph from the Boston bombing and the picture of the officers from Newtown, calling it "Sandy Hook bombings."
The video claims Chauvin is in the pictures and is a crisis actor not three different people. That is false.
Another claim in the video is a second officer on the scene in Minnesapolis has a badge that is "painted on, ironed on, not real, not a cop." There is no evidence given of this claim in the video.
The man referred to is Officer Tou Thao, who was also arrested and charged in connection with Floyd's death.
Here is the arrest report from the Minnesota attorney general about Thao.
Thao has been an officer with the Minneapolis PD full-time since 2012. At least six complaints have been filed against him during his time as an officer with no discipline taken against him.
The video also claims Floyd is "not even dead."
His death was confirmed by the coroner, as reported in this story on NPR.
Floyd's family had an independent autopsy conducted on his body as CNN reported. The autopsy ruled Floyd died from "asphyxiation from sustained pressure."
Another claim in the video warns the woman from the nightclub where both Floyd and Chauvin worked is also a "crisis actor."
Maya Santamaria gave an interview to ABC5 Eyewitness News KSTP.com about the two men who had worked security at El Nuevo Rodeo club.
The video claims she was also at the Sandy Hook shooting, using a photograph of Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan was killed in the shooting.
In the video there is a screengrab of a woman claiming to be both the woman in Minneapolis and the mom from Connecticut.
This is the video where the screengrab of Hockley -- not Santamaria -- was taken from a CNN video from September 2019.
The video also claims Floyd attended his own funeral and focuses on a picture of a black man in a hoodie. "He is not even dead," the man says about Floyd.
The man in the photograph is Stephen Jackson, a former NBA player who grew up with Floyd.
The picture shown is from a press conference on May 29, not "George Floyd at his own funeral."
The NBA website covered the press conference and posted the photograph on their website. This was not Floyd's funeral.
Lead Stories has previously debunked several claims that Floyd's death was faked, including:
Fact Check: George Floyd NOT Rushed Into Ambulance by Cops
Fact Check: George Floyd Is NOT Alive And There Is No Evidence Video Of His Death Was Faked
