New Orleans attacker: How false claims in regards to the suspect unfold | Islamophobia Information
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old suspected driver within the New Yr’s truck assault in New Orleans, was a United States citizen and US Military veteran.
However inside hours of the assault – which killed 15 folks and is being investigated as an act of terrorism – President-elect Donald Trump, Republican leaders and social media influencers speculated that Jabbar entered the US illegally.
Citing Fox Information, social media accounts on January 1 stated Jabbar “crossed the US-Mexico border on the Eagle Go crossing simply two days in the past” and that there was “blood on the fingers of the Biden administration”.
US Consultant for Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a 38-second Fox Information clip and wrote on X that Jabbar “is claimed to have come throughout the border in Eagle Go TWO DAYS AGO!!! Shut the border down!!!”
New Orleans terrorist attacker is claimed to have come throughout the border in Eagle Go TWO DAYS AGO!!!
Shut the border down!!!
Who did our authorities bomb currently that’s taking it out on harmless People?
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 1, 2025
Donald Trump Jr stated on X that Biden’s “parting reward” to the US was “migrant terrorists”.
Biden’s parting reward to America — migrant terrorists. https://t.co/PQBr8A6KDt
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 1, 2025
The president-elect referenced the assault on Fact Social on the morning of January 1, writing that “the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we’ve in our nation”.
At about 3am in New Orleans on New Yr’s Day, legislation enforcement officers say that Jabbar rammed Bourbon Road crowds with a rented Ford F-150 pick-up truck earlier than he died in a police shootout.
No less than one Fox Information broadcast on January 1 reported that the truck had crossed the US southern border two days earlier and was pushed by Jabbar, citing “federal sources”.
Reporters walked this again inside minutes on air. The community issued a correction inside an hour saying that the truck entered the nation in mid-November and it wasn’t pushed by Jabbar.
However it was too late to comprise false claims that Jabbar was within the US illegally. PolitiFact contacted Fox Information however didn’t hear again by publication.
Right here’s how misinformation in regards to the suspect unfold.
Fox Information’ reporting timeline
As officers labored to verify particulars in regards to the assault, Fox Information reported that the pick-up truck Jabbar rented got here into the US on the Eagle Go, Texas, border crossing.
At 10:40am ET (15:40 GMT) on January 1, a Fox Information reporter stated federal sources had licence plate information putting the suspect and the truck on the southern border days earlier than the assault:
“In response to federal sources, the suspect drove a truck with that Texas licence plate – OK, so that is simply coming into our newsroom, that is from Griff Jenkins and David Spunt working their federal sources on this, the suspect drives that truck with the Texas licence plate proper by way of Bourbon Road. In response to their sources, to Spunt and Jenkins, this particular person got here by way of Eagle Go, Texas, two days in the past.”
At about 10:47am ET (15:47 GMT), Fox Information correspondent David Spunt made clear that reporters didn’t know whether or not Jabbar was driving the truck.
“We’re listening to that the automobile was traced to coming throughout from Mexico into the USA at Eagle Go, Texas, two days in the past. To be clear, we don’t one hundred pc know that this man, and we do know the suspect is a person, was the particular person driving that throughout the border. That’s unclear at this level,” Spunt stated.
“We simply know that the precise licence plate was picked up by a reader at a border crossing. That is per two federal legislation enforcement sources to Fox Information – that it was picked up crossing at that border station at Eagle Go, Texas, two days in the past. I do know that raises extra questions than solutions however we’re offering data to our viewers as we get it, essentially the most correct data, in order that’s what we all know proper now.”
Trump despatched his Fact Social put up about “the criminals coming in” at 10:48am ET (15:48 GMT).
At 11:55am ET (16:55 GMT), Fox Information corrected the timeline on air, saying that the truck crossed the border in mid-November and confirmed that it wasn’t pushed by Jabbar.
“Our sources now inform Fox that that truck from Eagle Go, Texas, didn’t cross two days in the past. It crossed on November 16, and the identification of the driving force that crossed the border doesn’t seem like the shooter,” Fox Information correspondent Bryan Llenas stated.
PolitiFact didn’t discover cases of Fox Information on-air personalities repeating the unique inaccurate report in subsequent segments all through the day.
Regardless of Fox’s correction, many of those inaccurate posts stay on-line with out clarification.
Trump continued to fan the wrong immigration angle in one other Fact Social put up on January 2, lengthy after legislation enforcement confirmed Jabbar was a US citizen.
“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Coverage’ I stated, many instances throughout Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and different types of violent crime, will change into so dangerous in America that it’s going to change into exhausting to even think about or imagine,” Trump wrote. “That point has come, solely worse than ever imagined.”
In a January 2 media briefing, Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, stated Jabbar picked up the F-150 in Houston on December 30 and drove to New Orleans on the night of December 31.
