Editor’s note: The video in this story contains graphic content.
After the Chinese government announced new restrictions enforcing “zero-COVID” measures, thousands of protesters have rallied in major Chinese cities.
In response to the growing number of protests, China’s ruling Communtst Party vowed to “resolutely crack down” on the street demonstrations.
One video, posted to Twitter on Nov. 27, claims to show a police vehicle slamming into a crowd of protesters on the street. The tweet with the video, which VERIFY translated from Chinese using Google Translate, says “Shanghai police kill.” The video had more than 570,000 views.
Another tweet sharing the video said, “No one is reporting this. Police brutality in China running over protesters.”
THE QUESTION
Was a video showing police ramming into a crowd on the street taken during the protests in China?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, the video was taken from Tacoma, Washington, in 2021.
WHAT WE FOUND
Even though the Chinese government has ramped up its police and military presence in order to prevent growing street demonstrations, this video wasn’t taken in China.
It was actually taken in Tacoma, Washington, in January 2021 and shows a police officer driving into a crowd gathered for a street race. VERIFY was able to find the original video by reverse image searching isolated frames from the viral video.
A tweet posted on Jan. 23, 2021, which contains the video, says it was filmed at the intersection of 9th Street and Pacific Avenue.
The same people and vehicles can be seen in both videos. VERIFY also confirmed the location by using Google Maps street view.
VERIFY partner station KING 5 covered the story in January 2021 and reported the officer who was driving the patrol car was not charged for the incident.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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