September 22 Update: The anti-refugee, anti-Muslim group Americans First, Task Force of Aberdeen, SD has deleted the post, while promising to vet all material on the impeccable anti-right online media sources it shares on its Facebook page.
Of course, it asserts the truthiness of the impulse to post a bogus representation. Since their point was to illustrate that stabbings at a mall took place, they should be forgiven for posting the double-duty hoax using a decade-old photo of an inmate stabbed in a brawl in an incarceration facility. Because they fear Muslims, their hearts are pure. You betcha. [end update]
Two Minnesota-based anti-refugee activists will be speaking to the Americans First, Task Force of Aberdeen, SD tomorrow night.
Let's hope that St. Cloud's Ron Branstner and Willmar's Bob Enos take it upon themselves to let their new friends know they've been punked by a fake photo online.
According to the Snopes article, Under the Knife:
A gruesome photograph from a decade ago does not show injuries sustained by a victim of the September 2016 St. Cloud mall stabbing.
Claim: Photographs show injuries sustained by a victim of the September 2016 St. Cloud stabbing
Rated: False.
Origin: On 17 September, nine people were injured (none of them fatally) in a rampage by a knife-wielding man at the Crossroads Mall in St. Cloud. Minnesota, who was himself shot and killed by an off-duty police officer. Afterwards, some of the photographs displayed above were circulated on social media as pictures of one of the St. Cloud victims.
However, these images are much older than that incident. The photographs of a man with inch-deep slash wounds across his chest and back first reached our inbox March 2006, accompanied by text stating they depicted a United States Air Force (USAF) airman injured in a barroom incident near Kunsan Air Base in South Korea, home of the 8th Fighter Wing, also known as the Wolf Pack:
Kunsan Staff Sergeant Michael Jones, was assaulted in an A-Town bar by unknown assailants. 8th SFS and members of the OSI Detachment 641 B, are investigating. If anyone wishes to donate to the family of SSgt Jones you can call the 8th MXS First Sergeant at 782-4041 or (281) 330-8004.
"A-Town" is a commercial district about three miles from Kunsan Air Base frequented by Americans; "8th SFS" and "8th MXS" designate the 8th Security Forces Squadron (an Air Force police unit) and the 8th Maintenance Squadron, both at Kunsan; and "OSI" refers to a USAF Office of Special Investigations detachment at the air base.
According to the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, Air Force officials quickly determined that there had been no such attack involving any USAF personnel around Kunsan, nor was anyone with the name included in the e-mail (Staff Sergeant Michael Jones) currently stationed at Kunsan Air Base:
"The name of the person on that hoax e-mail is not anyone that is stationed at Kunsan," [Capt. Richard] Komurek said. "I don't know in the history of Kunsan if that person was ever stationed here, but when that e-mail came out, that person was not stationed here."
Wing officials, including OSI personnel, checked into the report and within a day or so concluded it was fake, Komurek said.
"We had no such attack and we confirmed that the e-mail was a hoax. We notified the chain of command and the Wolf Pack members about the e-mail right away," he said.
The e-mail gave a DSN number and a commercial number with a Houston area code for those wishing "to donate to the family of SSgt Jones." Repeated calls to the DSN number went unanswered and calls to the Texas number produced a recording stating that the number is not in service.
Evidently Air Force investigators didn't get the joke: the name and phone number used in the text were taken from Houston rapper Mike Jones' 2005 CD release on the Asylum label, Who Is Mike Jones?, on which he exhorts listeners to "Hit me up: 281-330-8004, baby."
According to Air Force officials, the photographs are genuine, but they originated in the U.S. and were pictures used by law enforcement authorities for training purposes (that documented the aftermath of a fight between inmates).
Air Force investigators aren't the only ones not to get this extended joke--the frightened people in Aberdeen didn't stop to verify the authenticity of the photos, either. Let's hope they gain at least a tiny bit of enlightenment from Branstner and Enos tomorrow night.
For a look at how Branstner's speaking engagement earlier this summer was received outside of a small circle of friends, we recommend posts by the South Dakota Libertarian Party (Video of Ron Branstner speaking about the Refugee Resettlement Program), as well as Dakota Free Press's New Americans Task Force: Fearmonger Branstner Misinformed, Listeners Not Contacting LS.
For fact-based coverage of the mall incident, we recommend checking out the St. Cloud Times, Minnesota Public Radio and the Star Tribune.
Screenshot: Americans First, Task Force of Aberdeen SD shared this online hoax on its Facebook page.
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