Photo shows “pallets or containers of bricks have been found near locations designated for protests related to the Democratic National Convention”
No, this photo doesn’t show bricks for DNC protests. It’s from 2020 in Dallas.
If your time is short
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This photo is from 2020 in Dallas. The bricks were near a construction site.
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Officials with Chicago’s Democratic National Convention Joint Information Center said Aug. 20 that brick pallets had not been found near protest sites.
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We last saw a rash of similarly misleading claims about bricks and protest sites in 2020, during social justice protests across the nation in response to George Floyd’s murder.
If we had a pallet of bricks for every time someone posted a picture of a pallet of bricks on the internet and said it showed something nefarious, we might just have a mansion.
Instead, all we can build with this claim is another fact-check.
“A source from the Chicago Police Department has verified that pallets or containers of bricks have been found near locations designated for protests related to the Democratic National Convention,” read an Aug. 18 X post viewed more than 458,000 times.
The post included a picture of red bricks, stacked and bound together, in what looked like a parking lot. We saw the same image shared elsewhere on X, and on other platforms.
The posts are wrong.
First, this particular image of bricks was taken in Dallas in 2020, not in Chicago this week.
(Screengrab from X)
In 2020, NBC News found the bricks in this picture were close to a construction site and had been there for months. Google Maps confirmed that the photographed bricks were in a parking lot on Ashland Street in Dallas as early as February 2020.
Second, Chicago city officials at the DNC Joint Information Center told PolitiFact on Aug. 20 that the rumors that police had found bricks near protest areas were unfounded.
“Earlier reports of brick pallets were unsubstantiated and confirmed to have been false,” a Joint Information Center spokesperson said in an email. The Joint Information Center draws together police, the U.S. Secret Service and other emergency responders, to coordinate convention security and safety.
Fact-checkers last saw a rash of claims that misleadingly speculated over the significance of brick piles in 2020, when Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupted around the country in response to George Floyd’s murder. Typically, the bricks depicted were close to construction sites.
Protesters in Chicago have been calling for an end to the war in Gaza by demonstrating outside the United Center, the site of the convention’s main events. Although police reported some protesters threw water bottles and other objects on Aug. 19, we found no reports that piles of bricks have factored in the public dissent.
We rate the claim this photo shows bricks designated for protests at the DNC False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
Our Sources
Sources
X post, Aug. 18, 2024
Email interview with DNC 2024 Joint Information Center, Aug. 20, 2024
NBC News, Viral rumors about bricks meant to encourage protest shown to be false, June 2, 2020
Factcheck.org, Bricks Were Placed for Construction, Not to Incite Protesters, June 5, 2020
Google Maps, 1700 Ashland St, Dallas, TX, accessed Aug. 20, 2024
Associated Press, Some protesters tear down security fence as thousands march outside Democratic National Convention, Aug. 19, 2024
PolitiFact, Fact-checking theories about bricks and Black Lives Matter protests, June 3, 2020
