A video of police arresting a man has been viewed thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter alongside a claim it shows police in Italy detaining a man who flouted a national lockdown during the novel coronavirus pandemic. The claim is false; the footage in fact shows police arresting a knife-wielding man in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.
The video was published on Facebook here on March 22, 2020. The video, which includes superimposed text that reads "Caarona Update", has since been viewed more than 957,000 times.
The post's Urdu-language caption translates to English as: "Pakistanis do not take it as a joke. See what is happening in Italy and learn a lesson. When the virus started spreading in Italy, the government said to keep distance, but neither the government nor the people took it seriously and now when the virus has spread, this distance is being maintained like this forcibly."
Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:
Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post
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Italy has been put on a nationwide lockdown as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, AFP reported here.
The same video was shared thousands of times alongside a similar claim on Facebook here, here and here; and on Twitter here, here, here, here and here.
The claim is false. A reverse Google image search using video keyframes extracted with InVID, a video verification tool, and subsequent keyword searches found the clip, in fact, shows police subduing a man in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.
The footage was published here by Globo, a major Brazilian media network, on March 20, 2020. The article states the man was arrested after threatening military police with a knife while intoxicated.
Below is a screenshot of the Globo report:
A screenshot of the Globo report Globo reported that the incident happened on Itariri Street in Caninde, an area just north of Sao Paulo. The same footage was also published in this blog post, which reports the same location.
A Google Street View image of Itariri Street here matches with the street seen in the video shared in the misleading posts.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the street in the misleading Facebook post (L) and the Google Street View image (R) with corresponding features circled in red:
A screenshot comparison of the street in the misleading Facebook post (L) and the Google Street View image (R) with corresponding features circled in red
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by BOOM staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
