In Summary: A Facebook page, Liberia Online Media News, posted photos of police response to a rid of a drug ghetto in Rehab which led to the death of a 17-year-old boy James Kandy. But one of the photos shared was taken from the ongoing protests in Kenya.
On July 3, a Facebook page that claims to be a news and media website posted images of boys with gunshot wounds. The post claimed that the images were of James Kandy, a 17-year-old boy who was shot by an officer of the Liberian National Police in the Rehab community during a raid of drug addicts.
The Claim
Along with the two photos, the post reads: “So sad for our country Liberia. A little boy named James Kandy who shot in the Rehab Community by the Liberia National Police officer Ishmael Trawally. May his soul rest in peace”
Rating Justification
To verify the images, we conducted multiple reserve image searches of the two images.
The first image in the post shows a boy lying on his back with blood stains on his shirt and a wound on his chest.
Results from the reverse image search of the first photo show where the photo first appeared online. Three of them were linked to a Facebook page named “Best Garlow” – a Facebook blog and the other from a news article published by the Analyst Newspaper.
Our search shows that the first photo was published along with news stories about the shooting of the 17-year-old boy in Rehab.
We also conducted a reverse image search on the second photo shared in the Facebook post. This photo is of a young man lying with multiple gunshot wounds.
Results from the reverse image search of this photo show that the image became popular online on June 27 after Kenyan police clashed with protesters in Nairobi and other cities across the country.
Our search found a YouTube news presentation by Citizen TV Kenya, a Kenya news outlet, which reported that a 12-year-old boy, Kennedy Oyango Ouma, was shot eight times in a violent protest in Ongata Rongia on June 27, 2024.
The image appeared on other Kenyan social media sites which can be seen here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we conclude that the second image shared in the Facebook post made by Liberia Online Media News on July 3 about police shooting a 17-year-old boy in Rehab is not an image from Liberia.
The image is not associated with any incident in Liberia. The photo was taken on June 27 in Kenya when police and protesters clashed in a violent protest.
This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content
