Does a collection of video clips show scenes from Florida's Operation Statewide Shield, an August 2026 sweep which located 163 missing children? No, that's not true: Some videos circulating on social media use old clips from other situations, such as a 2018 car accident in Texas, to falsely represent the news out of Florida. Some of these same clips have also appeared in clickbait videos about other real cases: the Siders family case in Vinton County, Ohio, the Lindsay Clancey case in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and an August 2026 Miami, Florida child abuse case.
The clips appear in a video (archived here) published by the @RoyIsThaTruth account on X on Aug. 27, 2026. It read:
163 missing kids rescued in Florida.
3 white men arrested. 🤦🏾♂️🙏🏾
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @RoyIsThaTruth on X.)
An Aug. 25, 2026, article (archived here) from Fox 13 Tampa Bay, reported the recovery of 163 missing children in Operation Statewide Shield. The article includes this image of mugshots of three men who have been arrested to date: Michael Prescott, Jayden Harwood, and Robert Allison. These men did not act together to collectively kidnap 163 children. Lead Stories has published a fact check addressing that question.
An Aug. 25, 2026, press release (archived here) from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement describes the operation:
The multi-disciplinary task force proactively located vulnerable youth across the state of Florida, including 46 recoveries 46 recoveries in the Tampa Bay region, 41 in Miami, 32 in Jacksonville, 21 in Orlando, 12 in Fort Myers, 8 in Pensacola, and 3 in the Tallahassee region. The operation also resulted in locations and recoveries in six states, one U.S. territory, and 12 countries. The children ranged in age from 2 months to 17 years old, and many had experienced various levels of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or exposure to other criminal activity.
Lead Stories used Google Lens to reverse image search for the origins of the clips with screenshots from the original TikTok video from @user15416277034262 (archived here), a handle which appears in the @RoyIsThaTruth repost on X. Of the clips we were able to identify, all pointed to unrelated cases. When searching with screenshots from this video, Lead Stories frequently encountered clips reused in other clickbait videos to illustrate other unrelated stories.
The opening clip of the video (pictured above) appears to show a staged scene. It features about six children looking up as a cellar door above their heads opens. They are behind a panel of loose wire mesh and have bound hands and blue tape over their mouths. While unsuccessful in finding the source of this clip, Lead Stories found a TikTok video (archived here) posted on July 5, 2026, by an account with the handle @redy7ino. The video is about the Siders family case from Vinton County, Ohio. The clip in question appears at 30 seconds in that TikTok video. While the clip does not show the Siders children, its appearance here shows the footage predates Florida's Operation Statewide Shield.
The source of many clips: A&E's Live PD: Home Alone (Season 3)
(Image source: composite with screenshots from post by @user15416277034262 on TikTok.)
A 4-minute, 12-second segment of this Live PD episode (archived here) was published on YouTube on April 8, 2019 (embedded below). It shows officers from the Salinas Police Department in California arresting a man in the driveway of his home after a car chase. The man's three-year-old daughter is home alone with the family dog. The officers open the door to the home; the girl comes out, is comforted by a female officer, and is given a stuffed toy lion. The Lead Stories composite image (above) shows scenes from this A&E episode out of sequence, in the order they appear in the @user15416277034262 TikTok video about Operation Statewide Shield.
Pictured below is a composite image showing one clip -- from 2 minutes, 8 seconds in the A&E video, where the little girl approaches the officers -- repurposed for unrelated clickbait videos. Below left, the Siders case in Ohio posted on TikTok by @redy7ino (archived here). Below right (top) is a Facebook reel about the Lindsay Clancey case (archived here),and (bottom) a Facebook reel about a Miami mom who put hot wax on her kids (archived here).
(Image source: composite with screenshots from posts by @redy7ino on TikTok, @James-Jackson and @dipuufilms on Facebook.)
Kids locked in Utah shed -- a clip is mirrored
(Image source: composite with screenshots from post by @user15416277034262 on TikTok.)
A Dec. 5, 2025, segment from KSL News titled "Ogden police find 5 children locked in shed while searching for father" is embedded below (archived here). In the news segment, the children are shown with their faces blurred as they leave a shed. The hinges of the shed door are on the right. The scene appears as the second clip in the @user15416277034262 video, but the TikTok clip (pictured above left) has been reversed so that the door hinges are on the left. Later, another portion of that clip showing children walking through the doorway appears in the original orientation (above center). The final clip of the @user15416277034262 video shows the infant in the crib (above right) from the Utah news story.
A video (archived here) from FOX 4 Dallas-Forth Worth posted on YouTube on May 29, 2018, and titled, "Photo of Dallas Police officer comforting baby goes viral," contains footage from the scene of a rollover car accident. A clip showing the officer and a first responder, each holding a child in their arms, appears out of context in the @user15416277034262 video (pictured below).
(Image source: screenshot from post by @user15416277034262 on TikTok.)
A Nov. 30, 2024, video published on YouTube by Midwest Safety tells the story of a man who, on March 31, 2022, turned himself in at a Milwaukee police station, confessing that he killed his girlfriend. Officers then go to his house and, at 8 minutes, 32 seconds, break the door down (archived here). This door-kicking scene (pictured below) appears immediately after the mugshots are shown a second time in the TikTok video, the narration is talking about Florida:
Officials reported 46 recoveries through the Tampa Bay region
(Image source: screenshot from post by @user15416277034262 on TikTok.)
Two unrelated crime stories in Pennsylvania were also mined for clips to recycle in clickbait videos. A May 28, 2026, news story from CBS Philadelphia reported that a caregiver allegedly killed her boyfriend and ordered a Lyft to help her dispose of the body. A scene showing many officers in an urban alley with police tape (below left) appears at 1 minute, 26 seconds in that YouTube video (archived here). An April 21, 2026, video (archived here) posted on YouTube by a reporter from the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, shows a press conference (below right) announcing an arrest in a Feb. 11, 2026, homicide case.
(Image source: composite with screenshots from post by @user15416277034262 on TikTok.)
Other fact checks
The arrests of the three men pictured in the mugshots were also investigated by Lead Stories.
