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FACTCHECK

Debunked: Videos showing a man smashing up an airport with a hammer were not filmed in Dublin

Corroborating videos showed an arrest by the ‘Carabineros de Chile’.

A VIDEO SHOWING a man smashing display screens at an airport has been shared online with captions and descriptions that falsely imply it was filmed at Dublin Airport.

The footage shows a man jump over a check-in counter at a Terminal and swing a hammer at monitors and display screens as he shouts. It is unclear what he is saying, or even if it is in English.

The video was shared by Irish anti-immigration groups with descriptions that it occurred at Dublin Airport.

Anti-immigration groups regularly share stories that imply that non-Irish people are dangerous, including a false claim last month that a “black man” tried to abduct a child in Dundalk. 

This year, The Journal has also debunked claims that a man charged with weapons offences was not Irish, that a foreign national had brandished a handgun on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, that there was a media blackout on covering crimes by migrants, and that non-white election candidates were criminals or were planning on implementing Sharia law.

However, the video of the man wielding the hammer was actually taken in Chile, not Dublin; there are numerous clues that reveal this, as well as other videos of the incident and reports about it in Chilean media.

One version of the video, posted by an Irish anti-immigrant group on 29 August, features an onscreen caption saying that it was taken at Dublin Airport. It has been viewed more than 1,700 times on Facebook.

Another version of the video was also posted on Facebook on 28 August with a one-word caption, “Deport”. It has been viewed more than 14,000 times with people in the comment section insisting that it was filmed in Dublin airport.

However, various signs and screens visible in the video are written primarily in Spanish, not in Irish and English as is customary in Dublin Airport.

Salidas At one point in the video, the camera pans to show the word Salida.. on a display screen. Salidas is Spanish for Departures.

The clip is also not the only footage taken of the hammer damage caused by the man, who is wearing a distinctive t-shirt featuring a black and white Batman logo in the video.

Other videos show the man getting arrested by two people in heavily-armored uniforms emblazoned with the name of a national law enforcement agency: Carabineros de Chile.

The incident was reported widely in Chilean media, including state television, which featured social media videos alongside live scenes from the same area of the airport in the country’s capital, Santiago.

The media reports are somewhat inconsistent about what happened: some say that the man became enraged when he found out that the ticket he had bought was a fake, while others say that he was refused onboard the plane for not having a visa for the United States.

However, all describe the suspect as a Haitian resident trying to return to his home country.

It is also clear that the incident did not happen in Ireland. 

 The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.

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