Video of police car driving through crowd is not from China protests

A video claiming to show a police vehicle ramming into a crowd wasn’t taken during protests in China. It’s actually from Washington state in 2021.

Editor’s note: The video in this story contains graphic content. 

After the Chinese government announced new restrictions enforcing “zero-COVID” measures, thousands of protesters have rallied in major Chinese cities. 

In response to the growing number of protests, China’s ruling Communtst Party vowed to “resolutely crack down” on the street demonstrations. 

One video, posted to Twitter on Nov. 27, claims to show a police vehicle slamming into a crowd of protesters on the street. The tweet with the video, which VERIFY translated from Chinese using Google Translate, says “Shanghai police kill.” The video had more than 570,000 views.



Another tweet sharing the video said, “No one is reporting this. Police brutality in China running over protesters.”

THE QUESTION

Was a video showing police ramming into a crowd on the street taken during the protests in China?

THE SOURCES

THE ANSWER

This is false.



No, the video was taken from Tacoma, Washington, in 2021. 

WHAT WE FOUND

Even though the Chinese government has ramped up its police and military presence in order to prevent growing street demonstrations, this video wasn’t taken in China. 

It was actually taken in Tacoma, Washington, in January 2021 and shows a police officer driving into a crowd gathered for a street race. VERIFY was able to find the original video by reverse image searching isolated frames from the viral video.

A tweet posted on Jan. 23, 2021, which contains the video, says it was filmed at the intersection of 9th Street and Pacific Avenue.

The same people and vehicles can be seen in both videos. VERIFY also confirmed the location by using Google Maps street view.

Credit: Various
The same people and vehicles can be seen in both videos. VERIFY also confirmed the location by using Google Maps street view.

VERIFY partner station KING 5 covered the story in January 2021 and reported the officer who was driving the patrol car was not charged for the incident. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More from VERIFY: No, Chinese state media did not blur World Cup crowds as viral tweets suggest

The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter, text alerts and our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Learn More »

Follow Us

Want something VERIFIED?

Text: 202-410-8808

Related Stories