A picture shows Mark Violet, a “known antifa extremist”, who has been identified as the Donald Trump shooter and arrested by Butler Police Department.
This isn’t true. The FBI has named 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks as the “subject involved” in the attempted assassination of Trump, and he was shot at the scene. The man pictured is an Italian sports journalist called Marco Violi, who has confirmed he was in Rome during the attack in Pennsylvania on 13 July.
Posts being shared on social media have misidentified an Italian sports journalist as the shooter responsible for the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
Former US President and presidential candidate Mr Trump survived the assassination attempt with a bullet wound to his ear, but one spectator, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two other people were seriously injured at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July.
Some users online have wrongly named the attacker as ‘Mark Violets’. Posts featuring an image of a man in sunglasses on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, say: “BREAKING: Butler Police Department confirms the arrest of the #Trump shooter identified as Mark Violets, a known antifa extremist. He uploaded a video on YouTube before the attack, claiming ‘justice was coming.’”
‘Antifa’ is a catch-all term for a loosely affiliated group of far-left anti-fascism activists.
However, the man pictured is not who is claimed, and he has no involvement in the attack on the former president. He is actually an Italian sports journalist called Marco Violi.
The FBI has named Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the “subject involved” in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.
Some of the posts being shared have also falsely claimed that the suspect in the shooting was arrested, however US officials have confirmed that in fact Crooks was shot dead at the scene.
After being falsely linked to the shooting, Mr Violi posted a statement on his Instagram page on 14 July, which said [translated by Google]: “I categorically deny that I am involved in this situation.”
Mr Violi also said he was in Rome in Italy, not in the US and had learned about the shooting on television news. The same room in the background of the image being shared, also appears in previous videos he appeared in on YouTube.
Full Fact often sees people being mistakenly identified as perpetrators or victims during significant global events such as this, and we have previously fact checked a number of claims which identified the wrong person in the aftermath. It’s important to consider whether what you are seeing is accurate before sharing.
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 the man pictured is not the person named by the FBI as the “subject involved” in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, and has released a statement confirming he was in Rome during the attack.
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