FACT CHECK: No, This Image Does Not Show Kenosha Police Unloading Bricks For Protesters

An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows law enforcement in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving bricks at a location in the city to be used by protesters.

Verdict: False

The image actually shows police in Boston, Massachusetts, in early June of last year unloading bricks at their headquarters that had been removed from a damaged sidewalk.

Fact Check:

On Nov. 19, a jury found 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty of all five charges brought against him in connection to the fatal shooting of two men and the nonfatal shooting of another during Aug. 25, 2020, protests in Kenosha, CNBC reported. Protests in response to the verdict have taken place in Kenosha and other places across the country, according to ABC News.

In the Nov. 17 Facebook post’s photo, two police officers can be seen standing next to a black truck that has some bricks in its bed. The post alleges, “Dirty police aiding in the destructive protests about to happen in Kenosha, by unloading bricks in some areas… pass this around.” (RELATED: Did Kyle Rittenhouse’s Mother Drive Him To The Kenosha Protest While He Was Armed With A Rifle?)

The image, however, predates Rittenhouse’s acquittal by more than a year. It comes from a video of police in Boston, Massachusetts, that was shared on Facebook on June 1, 2020. In a June 2, 2020, Facebook post, the Northeastern University Police Department identified the people seen in the footage as two of the department’s officers, who had “collected the bricks and returned them to NUPD headquarters” the previous day after “coming across a damaged brick sidewalk at the corner of Tremont and Coventry streets that posed a safety hazard for pedestrians due to loose, upturned and broken bricks.”

Social media users previously shared the footage of the Northeastern University police officers along with false claims that they were “planting” bricks near locations where protests against police brutality and racial injustice would be held. Such protests were sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, in Minneapolis in late May last year.

Check Your Fact on Monday debunked a viral image that purportedly showed stacks of bricks recently left in Kenosha that was actually taken in Dallas, Texas, in 2020. Kenosha Police Department Public Information Officer Lt. Joe Nosalik told Check Your Fact that claims of police finding piles of bricks at locations in the city were “absolutely false.”

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