ALTERED VIDEO: Barangay captain slams man to wall for not wearing face shield

At a glance:

• Claim: A video shows a barangay captain slamming a man to a wall for not wearing a face shield.
• Rating: ALTERED VIDEO
• The facts: The video was taken in a police station in the municipality of Sabanalaraga in Atlántico, Colombia. The man in the video was allegedly caught possessing marijuana.
• Why we fact-checked this: The video is making rounds in social media. As of writing, posts containing the altered video have had 18,800 reacts, 20,400 comments, 92,200 shares, and 237,400 post views  collectively.

Complete details:

Facebook page “Like this page” posted a video on Friday, December 25, supposedly showing a barangay captain lifting a handcuffed man by his neck and slamming him to a wall. The barangay captain, who was wearing a face mask, could also be heard cursing at the man. 

According to the video’s caption, the man allegedly violated health protocols by only wearing a face mask but not a face shield. The caption in the video did not name the barangay captain nor where the incident took place.

“Face mask lang suot ni kuya walang Face shield kaya hinampas sa pader ni Brgy Captain si kuya,” the caption read. “Kalahati pa daw yan ang linabas na lakas ni Brgy Captain pano na siguro kung nilabas lahat baka lumampas si kuya sa pader ng Brgy hall. Share natin para makarating kay idol Raffy Tulfo.”

(He only wore a face mask. The barangay captain slammed him to the wall because he did not wear a face shield. The barangay captain said he only exerted half the effort. What would have happened if he slammed him at full strength? He probably would have been forced out of the wall of the barangay hall. Let’s share this so it reaches Raffy Tulfo.)

This video was altered.

The audio of the video was replaced to make it appear that the video was taken from the Philippines. Using reverse image search, Rappler found that the video was taken in a police station in the municipality of Sabanalaraga, Atlántico, Colombia on November 2. 

Jeiner Sarmiento, the 23-year-old detainee in the video, was arrested for allegedly carrying marijuana. In an interview with Noticias Caracol, a Colombian-based news program, Sarmiento said that the 10-second video did not capture the whole incident and claimed he was hit several times.

The video was only uploaded on December 3 and was promptly covered by Colombian-based news and media organizations such as El Espectador, Semana, Blu Radio, and LA FM.

Rappler also found through social monitoring tool CrowdTangle that the video was posted by at least 9 Facebook pages. As of writing, the posts containing the altered video had over 92,200 shares and 237,400 views combined. At least 7 websites also created articles using the altered content of the video. – Jerome Sagcal/Rappler

This article was written by a volunteer of Rappler’s fact-checking mentorship program, a 5-week exclusive and hands-on training on detecting, investigating, and verifying online misinformation and disinformation.

Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.