Fact check: Images said to be Jacob Blake are at least 4 years old

Eric Litke, USA TODAY
·2 min read

The claim: Photos show Jacob Blake holding guns

An image circulating widely on Facebook shows a grid of four pictures where a Black male is holding a gun — pointing at the camera in three of them.

The Aug. 25 post is captioned: “I’m not judging… I’m just showing you pictures of Jacob Blake.”

Blake, 29, was shot repeatedly in the back by police during an Aug. 23 confrontation in Kenosha, Wisconsin, sparking violent protests in which two people were killed. Authorities have said he had a knife in his car, but it’s not yet clear where the knife was when Blake was shot. He did not have a gun.

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But the person shown in the images isn’t Blake.

For one, Blake does not bear any resemblance to anyone in the images.

Images have been circulating since 2016

But equally notable, this exact grid has been circulating online for at least four years. PolitiFact — in rating this image False — noted a July 2016 Facebook post labeled the person in the images as Pierre Loury, a 16-year-old boy shot and killed by a Chicago police officer in April 2016.

The individual photos from the image also appear on various discussion boards and forums attributed to Loury.

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The Associated Press said the photo also circulated after a Minneapolis police shooting in 2018, in a fact check ruling this image as false.

It’s not clear if the images actually show Loury, as we — like PolitiFact — didn’t find any reputable sources confirming that. (Loury’s Facebook page, while still visible, doesn’t include any of those images.)

Our ruling: False

We rate this claim FALSE because it is not supported by our research. Jacob Blake doesn’t bear any resemblance to the person or people in the images. And these images have been circulating — both together and separately — online for at least four years.

Our fact-check sources:

Contact Eric Litke at (414) 225-5061 or elitke@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ericlitke.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Images said to be Jacob Blake are at least 4 years old