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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

6,849 published reviews in this topic

dpaCrime & justice

Politiemensen moeten van de rechter in beslag genomen brandstof terugbrengen.

Publisher’s rating: Het bericht klopt niet. In de video die zou moeten aantonen dat politiemensen jerrycans met brandstof brengen, zijn geen politiemensen te zien. Voor de bewering dat de rechter dit aan de politie heeft opgelegd, is geen enkel bewijs te vinden. De politie laat desgevraagd aan dpa weten dat ze de brandstof niet hebben teruggebracht. Wel zijn er video’s waarin de brandweer wordt opgeroepen om brandstof te brengen en van burgers die brandstof komen brengen.

فکت‌نامهCrime & justice

ابعاد کودک‌همسری در ایران چقدر است؟

Publisher’s rating: بیشترین ازدواج ثبت شده دختران زیر ۱۸ سال در شهرستان‌های مشهد، اهواز، تبریز، زاهدان، اردبیل، قم، تربت جام، نیشابور، ارومیه و بجنورد رخ داده که در سال ۱۳۹۹ بالاترین آمار ازدواج دختران زیر ۱۸ سال در آنها ثبت شده است. بالاترین آمار ازدواج دختران زیر ۱۳ سال نیز در شهرستان‌های خدابنده، بستان‌آباد، قوچان، زاهدان و ملکان به ثبت رسیده است.

Fact Crescendo CambodiaCrime & justice

USA៖ ដល់​ក​ហើយ​សមត្ថកិច្ច​ស្រុក​អាគាំង[សហរដ្ឋ​អាមេរិក]​វ៉ៃ​[វាយ]​ពួក​បាតុកម្មក​ដូច​សត្វ​ធាតុ អត់​ឃើញ​ក្បាល​ពួក​អង្គការ​សិទ្ធិ​មនុស្ស​វា​និយាយ​សោះ បើ​សិន​ជា​ខ្មែរ​វិញ​បែប​នេះ វា​និយាយ​មួយ​ថ្ងៃ​យ៉ាង​តិច​១​ពាន់​ដង

Publisher’s rating: False

dpaCrime & justice

Polizisten hatten vom Tatort bei Kusel aus länger als anderthalb Stunden Funkkontakt mit der Zentrale, bevor sie erschossen wurden. Deshalb muss es einen geheim gehaltenen Grund für ihren Tod geben.

Publisher’s rating: Die entscheidenden Tatsachenbehauptungen sind falsch. Für die Spekulationen über andere als die bisher bekannten Motive gibt es keinerlei Anhaltspunkte.

The claim links two assertions about the Kusel shootings: that the officers were in radio contact with dispatch for more than an hour and a half before they were shot, and that this supposedly points to a concealed reason for their deaths. The review traces the timing claim to a Facebook post interpreting a video of the police and prosecutor’s press conference on 1 February 2022. That post treated the radio exchanges as running from 19:30 to 20:17 and then from 20:17 to 21:08—98 minutes in total. The review explains that the press conference speaker, Westpfalz police vice-president Heiner Schmolzi, initially gave an incorrect time format. When a journalist raised the apparent inconsistency, Schmolzi clarified that the times referred to minutes and seconds: the first exchange lasted from 4:19:32 to 4:20:17, and the second from 4:20:17 to 4:21:08. The review says the Facebook post omitted this correction. On the corrected times, the exchanges followed one another and lasted less than a minute and a half in total, not 98 minutes. The review also addresses the leap from the supposed delay to a secret motive. It says the post offered speculation that the officers were killed by an intelligence service or colleagues, but that there was no indication supporting those suspicions. It notes that the precise sequence of events was not yet known and that one of the two suspected perpetrators had admitted being present during the shooting, while saying he had not fired. That qualification does not substantiate the post’s conspiracy allegations.

MediaWiseCrime & justice

2021 was one of the deadliest years in history for law enforcement, with a 55% increase in police fatalities.

Publisher’s rating: Needs Context

The claim circulated in social-media posts about 2021 police deaths, including a tweet by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The review traces the statistic to the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial Fund’s 2021 fatality report, linked from a Fox 28 Columbus article. That report recorded a 55% increase in line-of-duty deaths and identified 2021 as one of the deadliest years for U.S. police officers. The review therefore accepts those figures, but explains that they do not by themselves show what caused the increase. COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in the report: 301 of the 458 recorded deaths were attributed to it as of Dec. 31. By contrast, gun violence accounted for around 13% of the total, despite captions that emphasized gun violence. The review’s central qualification is that presenting the overall fatality increase without mentioning COVID-19 can give readers a misleading impression of what drove it. The review also examines a related Instagram post that criticized the statistic. It notes that the post was a screenshot of a tweet, which itself included the Fox 28 headline, “458 US officers died in the line of duty in 2021, highest since 1930.” The article’s body—not its headline—reported the COVID-19 deaths. The review cautions that the report could not establish in every case whether an officer contracted COVID-19 at work, while explaining that line-of-duty attribution could be based on whether it was more likely than not that infection occurred during official duties.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Yogi government did not apprehend the contractor responsible for the 2018 Varanasi bridge collapse till date

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned the contractor responsible for the collapse of part of the under-construction Chaukaghat-Lahartara flyover in Varanasi, and alleged that the Yogi government had not apprehended him. The review identifies the incident as occurring on 15 May 2018 and reports that 15 people were killed and 11 injured. It says the question was whether the contractor had been arrested in connection with that collapse—not whether every aspect of the case had concluded. To check the claim, the review cites an update posted by the Police Commissionerate Varanasi on 28 July 2018, court records, and a Supreme Court order. It reports that the police update listed eight people arrested in the case, including seven engineers of the UP State Bridge Corporation and a contractor. The review identifies that contractor as Saheb Hussain. It also says it examined the Varanasi District Court portal’s case-status and case-history records, using details from a published copy of the FIR to locate the case. The court records show that the accused had filed for bail in 2018. The review treats those bail filings as evidence that arrests had taken place; that evidence, together with the police update naming a contractor among those arrested, contradicts the claim that the responsible contractor had not been apprehended. The review also reports an important qualification about the case’s later status: a Supreme Court order noted that the Allahabad High Court had stayed the trial on 30 July 2019. Thus, the evidence addresses arrest, while the reported stay concerns the progress of the trial.