No, these guys aren’t looters – they are heroes of the LA fires

This is a screengrab of a post by X account Open Source from January 9. It accuses the people who appear in the video of looting when they were actually helping a friend save their belongings when their neighbourhood started burning.

Fires have ravaged the American city of Los Angeles since January 7 and, according to a number of accounts on X and Instagram, thieves are taking advantage of the catastrophe. To illustrate these claims, the accounts have been sharing two videos they say document looters in the act. But the local journalist who filmed the videos says they actually show people helping a family save their belongings when fire reached their property, a story confirmed by a local TV report.

Do these videos show people looting a home in Los Angeles after its residents fled the wildfires? That’s what a number of X accounts have been claiming since these videos began circulating on January 9.

"Reports of lots of looting in Los Angeles now,” reads a post featuring one of the videos by Open Source Intel. The post garnered more than three million views.

These two videos weres first posted on Instagram on January 9 by an account called The Chingon Mexican, which describes itself as an account for conservatives in the Mexican-American community.

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"Looters seen going through homes,” reads The Chingon Mexican’s post, which features one of the videos. The account claims these videos, which each last about ten seconds, show people looting in broad daylight.

The first excerpt features a young man wearing a hoodie coming out of a home carrying a large white bag (see below). He carries it across the street. The second video shows two men carrying a large television out of the front door of the same home.

An evacuation, not home looting


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