Old brick images stoke fear of violence at Democratic convention
- Published on August 21, 2024 at 23:11
- Updated on August 21, 2024 at 23:25
- 5 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"Pallets of bricks miraculously materialize in Chicago days before DNC set to start. Be prepared for substantial violence," says an August 19, 2024 X post.
The post includes a video in which a man films what appear to be cinder blocks stacked outside a Chicago hospital and suggests they will be used for vandalism.
Similar posts swept across X and platforms such as TikTok and YouTube as Democrats flocked to Chicago for the four-day event, during which Vice President Harris will formally accept the party's nomination to take on Republican Donald Trump in November's presidential election.
Other social media users issued similar warnings about a photo of bricks piled and bound together in a parking lot.
"Skids of bricks already delivered near the DNC, right on schedule," says one post sharing the picture on X.
"These bricks were apparently just removed from an area where protests are to occur this week in Chicago near the DNC," says another from Ryan Fournier, a conservative activist. "Interesting how bricks are always carefully placed around ANTIFA 'protests' *cough**cough* riots."
Fearmongering about pallets of bricks is a common trope for online disinformers, who have previously misrepresented photos from construction sites to claim left-wing groups such as Antifa, a loose coalition of anti-fascist activists, deliberately position masonry to incite violence during planned demonstrations. Similar rumors followed the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
On the first day of the Democratic convention in Chicago, protesters against Israel's war in Gaza briefly breached the outer security fence surrounding the United Center, where the major speeches are taking place. Police said they quickly contained the demonstration.
But the DNC 2024 Joint Information Center told AFP in an August 20 email that "earlier reports of brick pallets were unsubstantiated and confirmed to have been false."
The video and the image spreading online are unrelated to those protests and the Democratic convention.
Video from Chicago hospital in 2020
The handle shown in the clip corresponds to a TikTok user who first posted it in June 2020, amid nationwide protests over Floyd's murder.
"I'm here by the hospital. There's just a pallet of bricks down here and this one dude hanging out," a man says in the recording, before suggesting the bricks would be used to target the building.
The poster, a TikTok creator named Jeff Strauss, also shared the clip on Instagram with a caption calling the situation "fishy."
In an August 21 Instagram direct message, Strauss responded to AFP's questions about the video with a fishing emoji.
Using Google Maps Street View, AFP geolocated the footage to an intersection near a hospital approximately two miles north of the United Center (archived here and here). The location is even farther from a second DNC venue called McCormick Place (archived here).
AFP could not independently determine whether there was construction at the intersection in 2020.
Photo from Dallas in 2020
The picture of bricks spreading online also dates to 2020 and was taken in Dallas, Texas.
Reverse image searches reveal the image originally circulated alongside false claims that the pile was planted to provoke violence amid protests over Floyd's killing.
However, Google Maps Street View imagery shows the same bricks were in a Dallas parking lot near a supermarket months beforehand (archived here and here).
NBC News reported in 2020 that the location was close to a construction site. A Dallas police spokesperson also told FactCheck.org that the department had seen "nothing to confirm that any bricks were intentionally left for use at protests."
AFP has debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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