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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.

6,853 published reviews in this topic

Fact CrescendoCrime & justice

Claim: Has Indian native women working in Malaysia police murdered

Publisher’s rating: False

The review examined a social-media post claiming that a woman of Indian descent serving in Malaysia’s police force had been beaten to death. It says the post used photographs of female Malaysian police officers and that a WhatsApp version paired those images with a video showing a woman being beaten. The investigation searched for where the video was filmed, noting that some people had also presented it as an incident in India. The review reports that its search traced the violent video to Brazil, not Malaysia. It identifies the woman shown as Thalia Torres de Souza and says a Brazilian kidnapping group abducted and killed her, filming the attack. Separately, the review says Malaysian police had rejected the claim: the video was not filmed in Malaysia, and photographs of Malaysian policewomen had been misused to spread the rumor. On that evidence, the review concludes that no woman serving in the Malaysian police had been killed in the way the post alleged. The viral post therefore joined Malaysian police photographs to footage of a separate killing in Brazil.

Politifact-TelemundoCrime & justice

Kim Martin Morrow –CEO de Netflix– acaba de ser acusado de 15 cargos por pornografía infantil

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim under review was that “Kim Martin Morrow,” described in a social-media post as Netflix’s chief executive, had just been charged with 15 counts of child pornography. The post also alleged that 31,000 files had been found on his computers. The review says the claim circulated on social media alongside a link about Senator Ted Cruz seeking a criminal investigation of Netflix’s film *Cuties*. The investigation found that the post had the wrong person: Netflix’s CEO was Reed Hastings, not Kim Martin Morrow. PolitiFact reports that it searched news archives and found no evidence Hastings had been charged with any crime. It also says its searches found that the name “Kim Martin Morrow” appeared only in these inaccurate claims, and that none of Netflix’s eight senior executives or 12 directors had that name. The review places the rumor in the backlash after Netflix released *Cuties*. It distinguishes criticism that the film sexualized young girls from the separate criminal allegation against the company’s CEO: the review says the film’s release was not a crime and that the CEO had not been charged. It concludes that the claim was false.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Video of Shiv Sena goons assaulting an IDBI bank Manager in Maharashtra

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim attributed the assault in the video to Shiv Sena workers and placed it at an IDBI bank in Maharashtra. The review instead identified the incident as an assault on the former manager of the IDBI branch in Malkapur, in Buldhana district, on 24 August 2020. It said Youth Congress workers carried out the assault after a delay in sanctioning crop loans to farmers, and that the incident had no connection to Shiv Sena. To check the video’s provenance, FACTLY reports that it used reverse-image search and found similar visuals in videos shared by The Times of India, Times Now, News 18 Lokmat and 7 Star News. The descriptions or accompanying information associated with those videos identified the assailants as Youth Congress workers and placed the incident in Malkapur. This linked the visuals to the same event, rather than merely to a separate assault involving a bank employee. The review also reports contacting IDBI Malkapur Branch Manager Anil Sawle and Assistant Police Inspector Smita Masaye. Sawle said the former branch head had been assaulted by a group over delayed crop loans but did not identify a political party. Masaye specifically said Youth Congress workers assaulted the former manager on 24 August 2020 and clarified that Shiv Sena workers were not involved. The review’s identification therefore rests on both the matching video coverage and the police officer’s account; the current manager’s statement corroborates the circumstances but does not independently name the party.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

In een post op Facebook wordt beweerd dat een "Pedo handboek" dat op internet circuleert, volgens minister Ferd Grapperhaus van Justitie en Veiligheid "geen grens overschrijdt". De CDA-politicus zou "instructies" en adviezen voor pedofielen om makkelijker kinderen te verleiden, niet grensoverschrijdend vinden. Doet Grapperhaus er dus niets tegen?

Publisher’s rating: De stelling is fout. Minister Grapperhaus is bezig met de voorbereiding van een verbod op "pedohandboeken". Het wetsontwerp is al klaar en openbaar.

Politifact-TelemundoCrime & justice

"Es 20.8 veces más probable que la policía mate a alguien a que muera a manos de un criminal"

Publisher’s rating: Verdad

The claim originated in a Facebook post by Wisconsin state senator Chris Larson on August 24, 2020, discussing deaths in 2019. Larson compared 999 people shot and killed by police with 48 officers who died from criminal acts while on duty, concluding that the first number was 20.8 times the second. The review frames the comparison as whether police were more likely to kill someone than to be killed by a criminal, and rates that numerical claim as true. [S1: “En 2019, 89 policías murieron en el cumplimiento de su deber. Si bien todas las muertes representan una tragedia, casi la mitad (41) fueron accidentes. Ese mismo año, algunos oficiales dispararon y mataron a 999 personas. Es 20.8 veces más probable que la policía mate a alguien a que muera a manos de un criminal.”] The key distinction is that 89 officers died in the line of duty, but the review says 41 of those deaths were accidental. It identifies the remaining 48 as deaths the FBI classifies as “criminal,” caused by criminal acts. Thus, the 20.8 figure comes from dividing the 999 police killings by 48 criminal deaths of officers—not by all 89 line-of-duty deaths. [S1: “De ellos, 41 murieron de manera accidental, en su mayoría, en accidentes de auto, según el FBI. Eso deja 48 muertes a las que el FBI llama ‘delictivas’, que son causadas por actos criminales.”] For the 999 figure, Larson’s office cited The Washington Post’s Fatal Force database, which the review says has tracked fatal police shootings nationwide since 2015. The account describes the database’s process as monitoring local news and law-enforcement websites and social media, requesting public records, and verifying incidents with the relevant police department. The review concludes that the two cited 2019 totals support the ratio and labels Larson’s claim “Verdad.” [S1: “El diario rastrea ese tipo de casos siguiendo las noticias locales y los sitios web y redes sociales de las agencias del orden, y hace solicitudes de registros públicos y verifica los incidentes con el departamento de policía en cuestión. En 2019, la policía disparó y mató a 999 personas, según la base de datos.”]