A picture shows a man who is claiming to be homeless who has attacked people with a knife in various locations across England.
The Facebook posts making this claim are hoaxes. No such incidents have been reported in the areas claimed and the man pictured was detained in the US state of Alabama earlier this month. He is currently in custody.
A series of Facebook posts which say a man “claiming to be homeless” is attacking residents living in various locations in England are fake.
The posts appear in local buy and sell Facebook groups. One such post, published on a group for those living in Middlesbrough, says: “The public around #middlesbrough is being warned to be alert and vigilant. This man goes around knocking on peoples' doors claiming to be homeless ,seeking help and then he attacks you. He's on the run and is very dangerous!!
“On Friday, he attacked a 38-year-old single mom with a knife leaving her struggling for her life. Known as Jahree Daiquan William (21), also stole a vehicle from an 88-year-old woman under the guise of helping her offload groceries from her car. If you see him please call the police and be careful. Warn others [sic]!!!”
Other posts, published in groups for Oldham and Brooklands in Greater Manchester use wording that is identical except for the change of location.
However, the details in the post are fake. No such incidents have been reported by Cleveland Police, which covers the Middlesbrough area, or by Greater Manchester Police whose territory includes both Oldham and Brooklands.
A man named Jahree Daiquan Williams who matches the photograph used in the posts was arrested earlier this month following a fatal shooting in the US state of Alabama. He is currently in custody and facing homicide charges.
We regularly fact check hoax posts in Facebook groups, such as reports of missing children, elderly relatives or pets. We have seen instances in which these sorts of posts are edited later to offer cheap housing, links to surveys or other freebies, with comments often disabled so other social media users are unable to identify the posts as a hoax.
Hoaxes can damage people’s trust in local community news, because groups can become overwhelmed with false information. As a result, genuine posts may be ignored or dismissed as false.
We have written to Meta expressing these concerns and asking the company to take stronger action in response to this problem. We also have a guide with seven ways to spot if a Facebook post you’ve seen may be a hoax.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because no such incidents have been reported in the areas claimed and the man pictured is in custody in the United States
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