Snopes - Video Shows Black People Helping -- Not Looting -- During LA Wildfires
A video shows Black people looting bagged items and a TV during the January 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires.
Rating:
Miscaptioned
Context
A live broadcast from KTLA reporter Chip Yost on Jan. 8 confirmed this rumor was false and that the video users shared on X did not show looters. Yost's report documented the same people pictured in the clip on X, identifying them as a group of family members and their friends who banded together to remove items from partially burned home occupied a woman, her three children, dogs and other animals.
A rumor circulating online during the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles County claimed a video showed Black people looting a house of bagged items and a TV.
For example, on Jan. 9, one X user with more than 220,000 followers posted (archived) the clip with the bigoted caption, "The usual suspects are looting again." The post received more than 4.8 million views. The video displayed a watermark for an Instagram user. A check of that Instagram user's page located no such clip, indicating they had removed it.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/black-people-looting-la-wildfires/
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