During major protests, rumors sometimes surface about bricks being deliberately placed by law enforcement to incite violence.
The baseless conspiracy theory emerged in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in anticipation of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, and similar false claims about pallets of bricks made the rounds during the 2020 election and nationwide demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality.
The latest iteration of the claim targets the Canadian trucker demonstration against COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
“Canadian Government leaving dumpsters full of rocks in the streets in the hopes that the protests will turn violent,” reads a Feb. 9 Facebook post from the page Libertarian Candidates that accumulated more than 800 reactions in less than three days.
Accompanying the text is an image of a large, red container filled with rocks and rubble. A caption over the photo says, “If anything happens cause of those rocks, its (sic) 100% orchestrated.” The photo was captured from a Feb. 7 TikTok video that generated more 39,000 likes.
The claim follows Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson's state of emergency declaration, which followed reports of violence and disruptive behavior amid the ongoing demonstrations.
But rocks were not placed by the government to incite violence. The image circulating online shows a container filled with rubble from a construction project...
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