Did US President Joe Biden kneel before George Floyd’s son? Find out the Truth!
Nearly a year after the brutal killing of Gorge Floyd, an image of US President Joe Biden kneeling in front of a boy claimed to be late Floyd’s son is being shared widely on social media in Sri Lanka. The posts also mentioned about US government awarding Floyd’s family USD 27 million for his untimely death.
However, our Fact Crescendo team’s investigation revealed that while the city of Minneapolis had agreed to pay $27 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Floyd's family, the image is unrelated and the image was taken back in September 2020. The image was shows then presidential candidate Joe Biden talking to an apparel shop owner’s son in Detroit, Michigan after an election campaign.
Social Media Claims:
A Facebook User called Da Mayor of Lampese shared an image of US president kneeling before a young boy with the following caption on 16th of April.
“#Justice_For_Floyd
We Are Sorry!
US Government awards George Floyd's family $27 million for his untimely death, caused by the police officers, an incident that caused worldwide demonstrations.
President Biden had practically knelt down in front of George Floyd's son to ask for forgiveness.
Leadership that listens 👏”
Many Facebook accounts and pages in a number of countries shared this image with similar narration.
Fact Check
First, we decided to run a Google Reverse Image search on the image shared with the claim and found an Instagram post that was posted by US President Joe Biden on September 2020, during his election campaign, with the following caption:
‘’Our children are a constant reminder of why I’m in this fight.
We need to build an economy that gives them and their families a fair shot.
We need to root out systemic racism so they grow up in a more just nation than we have now.
We need to combat climate change so there’s a world left for them to thrive in.
I believe in a better future for our children and will fight for them until the very end,’’
We found another image of the same incident on the Getty Images website, captioned “Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden kneels to chat with CJ Brown while shopping at Three Thirteen, an apparel store on the city's Avenue of Fashion”
We also found a news article on Detroit Free Press website. They also mention about the above incident.
Detroit Free Press | Archived link
Back in November 2020 also, similar miscaptioned posts were shared widely and photographer Leah Mills tweeted “Today in a strange case of fake news in other countries: my photo is circulating around saying that it's of President elect Joe Biden apologizing to George Floyd's daughter after the election.
He later went to clarify that the photo was not of Biden interacting with George Floyd’s daughter but greeting a young CJ Brown .Here is a report about the city of Minneapolis agreeing to pay $27 million to family of George Floyd.
Conclusion:
From our investigation, it is clear that though the city of Minneapolis has agreed to pay USD 27 million to Floyd’s family, the image shared is not of President Biden talking to George Floyd’s daughter.
The viral image was taken back in September 2020, when the then presidential candidate Joe Biden interacted with a young CJ Brown outside his father’s apparel store in Detroit, Michigan.
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Title:Did US President Joe Biden kneel before George Floyd’s son?
Fact Check By: Nelson Mani
Result: Misleading