George Floyd, died in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 25th May, after a police officer Derek Chauvin had knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. Ever since these horrifying scenes of the police officer kneeling on the face of hapless George Floyd started circulating, riots erupted across the USA in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak

With media focus shifting from the COVID-19 pandemic to the “Black Lives Matter” movement, several fake and misleading posts with regards to the Floyd killing had also cropped up across social media. A Sri Lankan FB page titled New Sri Lanka posted a lengthy commentary on the situation which included claims that police officers in the US knelt down in apology for the killing. The post which appeared on 2nd June 2020 with a link to a LankaWeb news story with similar contents has already been shared several times and can be seen below:

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The post was accompanied by three images that seem to be related to the current crisis in the US. In addition to the claim about officers asking for forgiveness (අමෙරිකානු ඉතිහාසයේ මෙවැනි සිද්ධියකදී ප්‍රථම වතාවට ඇමරිකානු පොලිසිය පවා රාජ්‍ය අණට ඔබ්බෙන් යමින් විරෝධතාකරුවන්ට සහාය දෙමින් තම වෘත්තීය සගයා අතින් සිදු වූ එම වරදට, පින්තූරයේ ඇති ආකාරයට, පෙළපාලිකරුවන් ඉදිරියේ දණින් වැටී සමාව ඉල්ලනවා දකින්නට පුළුවන්), it also made several other claims such as that Officer Chauvin’s wife was divorcing him (මෙම හිංසනය කරපු ඒ චාවින් නම් පොලිස් කාරයාගේ බිරිඳ කෙලී චාවින් පවා මෙම සිද්ධියට විරෝධය පෑමක් වශයෙන් මරණයට පත් වූ මිනිහගේ පවුලෙන් සමාව අරගෙන තම ස්වාමිපුරුෂයාගෙන් නීත්‍යානුකූල දික්කසාද වීමට කටයුතු කරමින් තිබීම) and an opening line that made reference to cannibalism in the USA (හඳට යෑමේ ඉඳන් මිනීමස් කෑම දක්වා ලෝකය සලිත කරන සිදුවීම් ටොන් ගානක් දීල තියන ඇමරිකාව). The collective set of claims and images seemed suspicious and required a fact check to ascertain its authenticity.

FACT CHECK

We began with a Google Reverse Image search for the 3 images in the viral post. The first image of the police officers kneeling was linked to the core claim that the US police knelt in apology for Floyd’s death. The Google Reverse Image search indicated that the photograph was in fact associated with the Floyd killing but did not mean the officers were apologizing. In fact a June 1st Forbes article carried the same image and stated that officers joined the protest as a sign of solidarity.

The original image, associated with AFP and Getty Images ran with the caption: Police officers kneel during a rally in Coral Gables, Florida, on Saturday in response to the death of George Floyd. A screenshot of the original Forbes.com article can be seen below:

CBS News reported the scenes as “Police officers kneel and march in solidarity with protesters”

However, after the peaceful start to the protest, some protesters had started throwing objects at police officers causing damage to property as well, which had resulted in police responding with tear gas attack near Miami Police.

The concept of “taking a knee” was at first more commonly seen in American Football few years ago in a wave of silent protests related to police brutality and racial inequality.

Macmillan Definition | History of the phrase

Next we next ran a search for the second image which depicted a Black American hugging a White police officer in the midst of the George Floyd protests. Our search indicates that the photograph was indeed captured in Houston and was posted by several people online. One post from Twitter can be seen below:

The third image, which seemed to connect itself to the fact that Officer Derek Chauvin’s wife had filed for divorce soon after George Floyd’s death. While CNN and other major news carriers have also confirmed that the pregnant Kelly Chauvin filed for divorce, the image of the couple accompanying the post does not feature the Chauvins. The image was in fact part of an entirely different news story about a gender reveal party in the UK as carried in The Mirror on 28th May 2020 and has no connection to the current crisis in the US:

A further search for actual images of Derek and Kelly Chauvin indicated several images of Kelly Chauvin, including one from an expose published in The Express on June 3rd 2020 shown below which has no resemblance to the photo of the woman in the viral post:

Kellie Chauvin biography: 13 things about USOA’s Mrs. Minnesota 2019

CONCLUSION

Based on our findings it is apparent that the viral post is misleading by including a farrago of information both true and false. We know that George Floyd’s death caused riots and protests across America. We also know that some police officers joined the protests in solidarity, but they did not apologize. Further, while the Chavin divorce is factual the image related to the claim was false. Thus, we conclude that the post is partly false and misleading.

Title: Did US Police Kneel In Apology For The Killing Of George Floyd?

Fact Check By: Shanaya Seneviratne

Result: Explainer

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