Video unrelated to Alabama birthday party shooting

This article is more than one year old.
Published on April 20, 2023 at 20:10
2 min read
By Nahiara S. ALONSO, AFP USA
Translation and adaptation Rob Lever

Social media users are sharing a video they claim shows an April 2023 shooting at a teenager's birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama. This is false; the clip is from an earlier incident in a different city in the US state, according to a reverse image search and local authorities.

"BREAKING: 5 dead and multiple injured in mass shooting at a teenager's birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama," says a tweet published April 16, 2023.

The post includes a video, viewed more than 129,000 times, of people fleeing as a man opens fire with a handgun. The same footage circulated in Spanish-language Facebook and Twitter posts.

Screenshot of a tweet taken April 20, 2023

The posts come after an April 15, 2023 shooting at a 16th birthday party in the central Alabama community of Dadeville in which four people died and some 30 were injured. Authorities on April 17 provided an update and asked for the public's assistance in the investigation.

The video shared online is unrelated to the tragedy.

A reverse image search surfaced the same clip tweeted March 28, a day after a separate shooting incident in Gulf Shores, Alabama -- some 250 miles from Dadeville.

Local television station NBC15 covered the incident using the same segment, noting a 21-year-old suspect had been arrested and charged with one count of attempted murder.

Grant Brown, a Gulf Shores spokesman, confirmed to AFP on April 17 that the video claimed to show Dadeville was in fact taken in his city.

Using information from police, AFP found the March shooting occurred near The Hangout restaurant and Gulf Shores Beach Trading Company, a retail store seen in the clip.

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