A video of police fatally shooting down a man has gone viral. Those sharing the video claim that it shows a religious extremist being gunned down by the police in the USA.
A social media user shared the video (warning: visuals of unedited gun violence) and wrote, “A radical Islamist Mohammad Altamish in America was threatening with a knife. American police said to throw the knife and surrender. Mohammad Altamish did not agree. Then police did what a police officer should do with terrorists. (sic)”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The man in the video was Jesus Crosby who was not an Islamist but someone suffering from schizophrenia.
On a Google reverse image search, we found the news report associated with the video uploaded on YouTube on March 24, 2023. In the video, at the 1:52-minute timestamp, we found the same video shown from a reverse angle.
The video was titled, ‘APD to make changes after record number of officer shooting cases in 2022’. The report stated that the Albuquerque Police Department was looking to make several changes regarding using force after the department recorded 18 shootings in 2022.
We compared the viral video clips and found them to be the same. The man who was shot down was wearing the same dress in both clips and it was the same for the tree in the background.
We also found that the screenshot of the clip was uploaded on a US news website, ABQ Journal, on July 11, 2023. The caption read, “Lapel video showed the moments before police fatally shot Jesus Crosby outside the department’s Downtown headquarters in November 2022.” The source was mentioned as Albuquerque Police Department.
According to the report, ‘in November 2022, Albuquerque police officers shot and killed Jesus Crosby in the parking lot of the department’s headquarters when he took a step forward while holding nail clippers with the file extended.’ It was said that the man was experiencing a mental health crisis.
Another report published by KOB4 on December 25, 2022, also identified the victim as Jesus Crosby. The report stated that the Albuquerque police officers shot and killed 41-year-old Jesus Crosby in front of the department’s headquarters.
None of the reports identified Jesus Crosby as a Muslim.
Therefore, we conclude that the viral video does not show an Islamic extremist being shot down by the police in the USA.
