A video of a protester dressed up as Batman has gone viral with the false claim that he was at the US Capitol last night on 6 January, when a mob of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the building.
The video could be traced back to May 2020 when Bob Gable, better known as ‘Bucks County Batman’, showed up at Philadelphia’s anti-racism protests for George Floyd who was choked to death by a white police officer.
CLAIM
Several users also shared the video with the claim that ‘Batman’ had arrived at the US Capitol with Trump supporters.
One user’s video had garnered over 167,700 views at the time of writing this article.
The video shared by users ‘Dateway’ and ‘Osh’a Escabar’ on Facebook had over 3,100 views each.
In a now-deleted tweet, business news website Moneycontrol, had also shared the video with the caption, “Pro-Donald Trump mob storms US Capitol in bid to overturn the election & amidst the chaos, #Batman arrives at the #USCapitolBuilding. (sic)”
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Through a keyword search of ‘batman at protest’ we came across articles by several sites like Mashable and News18, which had covered the viral video back in May 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests, re-ignited by the death of George Floyd.
We also came across a report by a Philadelphia-based newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, which stated that on 30 May 2020, a “fully suited Batman emerged from the smoke unscathed” at the City Hall in Philadelphia, which is a city in Pennsylvania, whereas the US Capitol is in Washington DC.
The ‘Batman’ was identified as Bob Gable, a 43-year-old father of two from Bensalem. Gable is popularly known as ‘Bucks County Batman’ and owns a $12,000 Batsuit.
“Gable said he went to the protest to “help in any way that I could,” to hand out water and to listen to young protesters,” the Inquirer reported.
Further, we found the video on the verified Instagram account of ‘Bucks County Batman,’ which he had shared on 31 May, marking the location as Philadelphia City Hall.
The words ‘Justice for George Floyd’ are also visible on a placard behind him.
Evidently, a video from the anti-racism protests in Philadelphia from last year has been falsely revived as a recent one from Washington DC.
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