August 15, 2020
Lodi, California
The video of Erika Urrea, a California-based Police Officer, allegedly saving a man in a wheelchair from an oncoming train, has turned out to be fake. And a good fake at that. The video was staged as part of a propaganda program, according to a source within the Lodi Police Department. Due to fears for safety, this person would not go on the record with their name.
Although social media giants such as Facebook and YouTube have largely removed this fake clip, copies and variations of the video are still up on alternative social media sites. And links to that content keep popping up on the mainstream platforms, such as this one on Twitter, by Breaking911.
The clip is 36 seconds long. But its premise is false and misleading as the source points out that while the cop is real, the person in the wheelchair is an actor. The video was edited to make the train look closer than it actually was. The face was blurred to protect the identity of the actor.
The video flooded social media platforms last week. According to some reports, it was viewed over a million times across social media platforms.
This is not the first fake video to make its rounds through social media, and won’t be the last. It pays to be vigilant, and to always double check what you read in the mainstream media.