Reports on social media make the claim that Washington DC police escorted Antifa to the US capital before the January 6 protests. A spokesman for DC’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told Reuters this allegation was false. As proof, there is in some iterations a video that has been incorrectly marked and that has been distributed since at least December 5, 2020, which allegedly st. Washington, Minnesota, not Washington DC show.
Examples are visible on Twitter and Facebook here , here, here
Some iterations also include a video as ‘evidence’ in which a man claims to have seen three government vehicles ‘escorting four Antifa shuttles’. here , here , here, here.
Alaina Gertz, MPD’s public affairs specialist in Washington, told Reuters in an email that “the Metropolitan Police Department is not acting in the capacity of private security for any group.”
The claim appears to have originated from a tweet from pro-Trump account @RED_IN_PA, who posted the video on January 3 here . In a subsequent less tweeted post here , the account explained that the video ‘was not recent / recent; it was from a rally from ago ”.
According to the earliest recap Reuters could find, the video has been circulating here since at least December 8, 2020, here , allegedly on December 5, 2020 St.
It’s also visible on microblogging and social networking services, Parler here
The scene was apparently filmed somewhere near the November 5 protest outside the governor’s Tim Walz residence, located here (bit.ly/3s1ncQQ). At the beginning of the video, the man apparently refers to Summit, the street where the house is located.
As reported here by local media, a demonstration counter of Black Lives Matter protested on December 5 against a group supporting law enforcers ending the limited COVID-19 restrictions’ near the governor’s residence.
Reuters could not find any evidence to support the claim in this video and could not independently verify the authenticity of the St Paul video. The Minnesota State Patrol did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
VERDICT
Untrue. Police in DC have not accompanied ‘Antifa’ to DC Posts, and a video marked incorrectly has been circulating at least since December 8, 2020, which was allegedly recorded during a protest in St. Petersburg. Paul, Minnesota.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to actually check social media posts.