Does a real video show a woman shooting robbers from her car? No, that's not true: The clip appears to be a digital recreation of a June 2021 road rage incident in South Florida in which a man driving one car opened fire on another. The video and others like it digitally swap one person's likeness for another's, but the scenes they portray are essentially the same.
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) by the @MeganTec account on X on Oct. 11, 2026. It read:
This is the most American thing I've ever seen 💀
This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @MeganTec on X.)
The video is embedded below:
This is the most American thing I've ever seen 💀 https://t.co/s61gkO3wJd
-- Megan (@MeganTec) October 11, 2026
Second video
The claim appeared in another video (archived here) by the @wqfoa1mltxgcxv4 account uploaded on TikTok on Oct. 9, 2026. It read:
A 28-year-old woman shot and killed four armed robbers inside her car. #crimenews #usaus #shooting #tiktoknews #police
This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @wqfoa1mltxgcxv4 on TikTok.)
The video is embedded below:
@wqfoa1mltxgcxv4 A 28-year-old woman shot and killed four armed robbers inside her car. #crimenews #usaus #shooting #tiktoknews #police ♬ original sound - wqfoa1mltxgcxv4
Third video
A similar claim appeared in another video (archived here) by the same @wqfoa1mltxgcxv4 account uploaded on TikTok on Oct. 12, 2026. The headline in the video read:
A Woman Opens Fire on Two Armed Robbers Who Point Guns at Her Car, Leaving Both Dead!
This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @wqfoa1mltxgcxv4 on TikTok.)
The video is embedded below:
@wqfoa1mltxgcxv4 #usaus #viral #crimenews #shooting #tiktoknews ♬ original sound - wqfoa1mltxgcxv4
These three videos, along with others online, follow a nearly identical template, simply swapping one person's likeness for another's. The creators keep details intentionally generic, making the stories feel like they could have happened anywhere.
2021 road rage incident
The fabricated videos of women firing on robbers from their cars appear to have been inspired by a 2021 road rage incident in South Florida. Comparing the videos, Lead Stories found the footage of the person firing the gun is nearly identical frame by frame, except for the person being portrayed. In one of our examples, the scene is flipped horizontally.
In June 2021, Eric Popper was driving on I-95 near Miami when he cut off another driver. The driver followed him, honked his horn and hit Popper's car with an object, according to police. Popper said he thought the other driver was shooting at him, so he fired his gun several times through his car windows.
No one was hurt. Popper was charged with aggravated assault with a firearm and firing a deadly missile (archived here). In 2023, the charges were dismissed (archived here).
Original 2021 video
The video (archived here) posted by the WVTM 13 News account on Feb. 3, 2022 on YouTube is embedded below:
The video of Popper firing at the other vehicle was not released until about eight months after the incident.
News searches
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) and found no matching reports about the claim of a woman firing on three robbers from credible news outlets using the search terms: "woman," "shoots," "robbers," "car," and "video."
