The White House just tried and failed to pin the blame on protesters and anti-fascist groups. In its latest attempt to build a case against Antifa and professional anarchists, the official Twitter handle of the White House tweeted a video on Wednesday, June 3, saying they were committing "domestic acts of terror" by "staging bricks and weapons to instigate violence."
False Claims
The video, which has since been deleted by the White House, showed what appears to be a cage of bricks on the side of a street. However, it was later revealed that what the White House tweeted was actually video footage of security barriers outside the Chabad Jewish Community Centre in Sherman Oaks, California.
The cages, which are normally filled with rocks, have been placed outside the synagogue to prevent car-ramming attacks in the wake of the deadly antisemitic shooting at the Chabad of Poway in April last year. The bricks have since been removed "to alleviate people's concern that they may be vandalized and used by rioters," the Chabad house clarified in a Monday Facebook post.
NYPD's Misleading Video
The New York Police Department (NYPD) was caught doing something similar on Wednesday morning. Commissioner Dermot Shea posted a video of plastic containers filled with bricks placed at a street corner in New York City.
"This is what our cops are up against: Organized looters, strategically placing caches of bricks & rocks at locations throughout NYC," Shea captioned the clip.
New York City councilman Mark Treyger then chimed in saying he represents the area where the bricks were left before adding that there was no evidence to suggest organized looting in the area and the bricks were nothing more than construction debris from a construction site nearby.
"This is in my district. I went to the site. This construction debris was left near a construction site on Ave X in Gravesend. Could be evidence of a developer breaking law since phase 1 hasn't begun, but there was no evidence of organized looting on X last night that I'm aware of," he tweeted.
