Conservative political commentator and former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro — who once called Trump a “turd tornado” — spoke at the University of California Berkeley campus on Thursday night, despite overwhelming dissent from Antifa protesters who showed up by the hundreds. Although nine people were arrested at the scene, the event was largely a peaceful demonstration with no reports of violence.
This may have had something to do with the large police presence (the university reportedly spent $600,000 on security), in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the violent protest that rocked the campus earlier this year.
Yet, early Friday morning, a Facebook post started going viral claiming that a Shapiro supporter had been “stabbed in the neck by Antifa terrorists” at the demonstration. The post claims that the woman had been holding a sign in support of Shapiro when she was “yanked down from a light post then beaten and stabbed by left wing terrorist.” It was accompanied by a photo of the woman holding the sign, and another of a person with their face obscured lying on the ground in a puddle of blood:
“Make all the jokes you want about these Leftist Commies.. There is one thing that’s not a joke. That’s The level of hatred they have for patriots and conservatives. Make no mistake. These demons will firing squad every one of us without a shred of guilt. They are sick, evil beasts and our country is full of them. Never allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security when these demons are near. Please pray for this young woman.”
However Mediaite reached out to the Berkeley Police Department for a statement regarding the incident, and they received a decidedly different story.
“We have received no reports of a stabbing during or associated in anyway with last nights events,” wrote Andrew Greenwood, Berkeley Chief of Police. “There was no stabbing at all in the city of Berkeley last night, let alone on campus. Hundreds of officers were out about, so we are confident that we would have been aware of a stabbing incident.”
In other words, if we haven’t already learned this lesson over and over by this point: be suspicious of what you see on Facebook.
(Via Mediaite & Washington Post)