Burning police car video predates anti-deportation protests in Los Angeles

"MSM is still calling this Democratic Party run uprising of illegal aliens and communist a 'peaceful protest,'" says a June 8, 2025 post on X from Alex Jones, founder of the conspiratorial website InfoWars.

The clip shows a burning police car surrounded by other graffitied vehicles and roving crowds.

Image

Screenshot of an X post taken June 9, 2025

Similar claims placing the footage at the June 2025 demonstrations in Los Angeles ricocheted across X, where US Congressman Dan Crenshaw and Senator Ted Cruz amplified them.

The video also spread on Facebook and on YouTube, as well as in other languages, including Portuguese, Chinese and Arabic.

Protests in Los Angeles broke out June 6, spurred by immigration raids that resulted in dozens arrests of what authorities say were undocumented migrants and gang members. In a move state leaders criticized, US President Donald Trump -- who made immigration enforcement a pillar of his second term -- sent in California's National Guard, a stand-by military usually controlled by the governor.

Trump said the deployment of hundreds of Marines, due to arrive in Los Angeles on June 10, was also necessary, despite objections from state officials.

Images from the weekend of demonstrations show police spraying tear gas and at least three self-driving Waymo cars torched. According to reports, local police said law enforcement vehicles were targeted with rocks and fireworks during the upheaval and there is at least one news clip showing what appears to be a highway patrol car on fire. 

The clip shared online of the burning police vehicle does not come from that unrest, however.

Reverse image searches reveal the British television channel Sky News published the same footage in May 2020 (archived here).

The outlet reported that the clip was filmed during nationwide protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in the state of Minnesota.

Image

Screenshot of the SkyNews website taken June 9, 2025, with the original date of publication highlighted by AFP

A photo report from a local Los Angeles NBC affiliate also included images of same police cruisers, identifiable by their numeric markings (archived here).

Videos from the explosive 2020 protests, which swept across the United States, have been frequently misrepresented online in the years since, often to spread misleading claims about current events.

California Governor Gavin Newsom responded to one post claiming the cop-car video came from the June 2025 protests (archived here). "This video is from 2020," he wrote.

California officials have stressed the majority of protesters have been peaceful -- and that they could maintain law and order themselves.

The state of California has sued to block the use of the Guard troops and Newsom said he would also sue against the deployment of the Marines (archived here and here).

Read more of AFP's reporting on US misinformation here.