Does a viral video show a scene just before Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was attacked in June 2024? No, that's not true: The footage is unrelated to the incident and was recorded in a location about 125 miles away according to geolocation evidence. Copies of the footage have been circulating online since 2020 so the timing doesn't match either.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, where it was published on June 8, 2024. It opened:
Denmark PM Attack
'We have 5 children while you have 1 or 2.
In 10 years, there will be more Pakis(Muslims) than Danes hereThere are only 5 million Danes. You will soon be exterminated'
#DenmarkPMAttack
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Jun 10 14:42:24 2024 UTC)
The video captured a heated exchange between two individuals surrounded by the police. The man in the blue shirt appeared to be yelling at the man in white. At the 00:26 mark, one of the other persons present at the scene was seen performing a Nazi salute.
The post implied that the footage showed moments leading up to the attack on Denmark's prime minister in Copenhagen on June 7, 2024 (archived here).
However, the video not only wasn't recent but also was recorded in a different city located roughly 125 miles away from the Danish capital (archived here) and separated from it by a massive body of water.
The clip showed the Fakta logo on a building in the background behind what appeared to be a blue wooden fence. Another frame captured what seemed to be a brown shed with a yellow roof.
(Sources: X screenshots taken on Mon Jun 10 between 15:31:32 and 15:32:01 2024 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)
With the help of these unique identifiers, Lead Stories geolocated the footage (archived here). It was filmed in the Danish city of Tilst -- from a parking lot behind a small wooden structure with yellow markings, which overlooks the brick Fakta building:
(Source: Google Maps screenshot taken on Jun 10 16:13:58 2024 UTC)
The first mention of this video appeared on a Swedish neo-Nazi website in 2020. That means that the clip predated the attack on the Danish prime minister by four years, and, therefore, couldn't show the build-up to the incident.
As reported by Reuters (archived here), the arrested suspect was a 39-year-old male Polish national who was under the influence of alcohol and was unaware that the woman before him was the head of the Danish government.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about international topics can be found here.
