Eyewitness to the Millions March protest says the video showing "dead cops" chant is fake

[apples and oranges]

The viral cell phone video was first posted to the Rockland Times blog on 12/13/14 with the description:

A New York City resident told the Rockland County Times that he shot the video during the early evening of Saturday, December 13 as the “Millions March” was taking place. The video shooter said he’d seen anarchists in Murray Hill with signs that read “no cops, no prisons” and believes they are most likely the culprits behind the vulgar chant. Some red flags can be seen in the video.

http://www.rocklandtimes.com/2014/12/13/believe-your-ears-nyc-protesters-chant-for-dead-cops/

Things get interesting in the comments section:

AUTHOR:
Hello -- so you are saying you're sure this is your group on the tape?

EYEWITNESS:
I was at the Demonstration and we chanted -->> WHAT DO WE WANT ? Justice! WHEN DO WE WANT IT ? NOW !! So someone is playing a Vile game ! What a Coward and a Liar !

AUTHOR:
Were you walking with this specific group?

EYEWITNESS:
We started at Washington Square Park to the Police Headquarters and back ! Were you there ?

AUTHOR:
No. I run this website.

How do you know this particular group in the video is your group? This is only 100 people, there were many thousands who demonstrated.

ANOTHER READER:

Can you provide me with other video of the same protest?

Because NYC is full of phones and cameras. Yet every where I look the video is the same. If this were really happening there would be hundreds of matching videos.

This video is from so far away, I could edit the sound to make the crowd say anything I want.

I call BS.

AUTHOR:
There were tens of thousands of people protesting; this is one offshoot of 100 - 200 anarchists who were particularly extreme and probably only chanting this particular slogan for a few minutes. I think you are making quite the tenuous assumption that there'd be "hundreds" of videos.

The person who took the video sent it to our paper moments after it was shot, so he'd have to be real quick with the edit button to hoax it. Every major media in the nation from Fox News to NY Times were satisfied with the authenticity of the tape.

If anyone wishes to do a forensic examination of the tape, please do!

ANOTHER READER:
How about 20, 10, or how about even 2 videos?

So what you are admitting is that you did no fact checking of this video before you put it on your website. You took the word of ONE person.

See you are confused, it isn't my job to check facts, as a journalist it is yours.

AUTHOR:
I do not have a forensic video examiner on staff. In fact, we're a small media company in Rockland County (not NYC). It passed the BS test for me because I trusted the source. Seeing as it's now been featured on media companies that are 100X larger than this site and are based in NYC, perhaps you can take up your complaints with them.

ANOTHER READER: So your excuse for bad journalism is that you don't have the technology to check it?

Or, your excuse is other people did bad journalism also?

How about you find some other video?

How about you ask questions like you did of (EYEWITNESS)?

How about in your article you discuss the fact that you haven't checked the video in any way?

You know actual journalism, instead of posting a video that you have no proof of its accuracy.

Rolling Stone showed what happens when you trust one source.

[okaawhatever]

1. "See you are confused, it isn't my job to check facts, as a journalist it is yours." Brilliant! nt

[JHB]

2. I don't know about "fake", but I can judge size...

Time lapse of the main protest:

Thousands, taking about 90 minutes to pass.

Compare that to the "dead cops" chanters:

A few dozen, less than a hundred. A cluster of fuckheads.

[Fred Sanders]

3. I thought the post was about how the chants are doctored in, so it does not matter which crowd was larger.

[JHB]

4. Where is there a claim of doctoring?

Maybe I'm reading too fast, but I don't see that clam.

I do see the claim that it is misleading to show that clip and not also include that it was a tiny splinter group that was not representative of the main protest.

[Fred Sanders]

5. I think that is the point of the entire article, it is in the headline.

[TorchTheWitch]

6. like a similar chant at the cardinals game was made up?

I remember someone posting here a portion of a video of racist comments by Cardinals fans outside a stadium before a ball game. In a much longer video the protesters are shouting "Who do we want - Darren Wilson, how do we want him - dead." The Cardinals fans were generally not reacting to the protesters until then.

And there's the protesters blocking traffic and harassing motorists trying to get to work...

Two police officers beaten on the Brooklyn Bridge...

Plenty of other ones.

[CatWoman]

7. Slimy Baltimore FOX Affiliate Caught Faking "Kill a Cop" Protest Chant

http://gawker.com/slimy-baltimore-fox-affiliate-caught-faking-kill-a-cop-1674040381?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[sabrina 1]

8. That should surprise no one who actually cares about facts.