A July 28 New York City shooting was quickly followed by conspiracy theories about the suspect.
Right after the shooting, social media users began sharing a video of a “witness” who said the gunman shouted “free Palestine” and wore a keffiyeh. Conservative activist Laura Loomer Reshared the video July 28 and amplified the claim.
In the video, a person says, “This guy he comes out of here with the… he is from Palestine, he kept saying ‘free Palestine,’ he got his face covered up in the Palestine stuff. He walking out, the police don’t, pay him no mind, I said that’s him, it’s him, and then they end up getting him, got him and they put him to the ground and they got him… he tried to bomb it up… and so did the lady, the lady that he came in there with.”
Oliya Scootercatser, the founder of FreedomNews.TVwhich brands itself as a “boutique newswire agency,” originally posted the video July 28 on X.
PolitiFact contacted the New York Police Department; the agency pointed us to its public statements that did not address this claim.
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Publicly available photos, police and news reports do not support the claim.
A keffiyeh is a headdress traditionally worn by men in parts of the Middle East, and it has also come to represent the Palestinian liberation movement.
Multiple media outlets released a photo taken from surveillance video of the suspected shooter walking into the building in Park Avenue wearing sunglasses and a blazer and carrying a long rifle. The photo doesn’t show him with a keffiyeh; his head was uncovered.
We also searched the Nexis news database and found no credible news reports about the suspect wearing a headdress or chanting “free Palestine.”
PolitiFact reviewed a July 28 press conference held by New York City officials about the shooting and Mayor Eric Adams’ July 29 CBS Mornings interview and neither the NYPD nor Adams made any reference to Palestine.
The suspect, 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura from Las Vegas, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot, was apparently targeting the National Football League offices located inside a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, Adams said July 29. He also said that Tamura, who police said had a documented history of mental health issues, had a note that alluded he had CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a brain disease likely caused by repeated head injuries and linked to contact sport. In a note, Tamura appeared to have blamed the NFL.
The person referred to as a witness in the video also misleadingly says that the suspect tried to bomb the building, that he was accompanied by a woman and that the police “got him” when he exited the building.
Jessica Tisch, NYPD’s police commissioner, said July 28 that the bomb squad searched Tamura’s vehicle and found no explosives. Tisch also said Tamura was seen exiting the vehicle alone before walking into the building, and that they believe him to be a “lone shooter.” She noted that he shot himself in the chest on the 33rd floor.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and its New York chapter offered condolences to the loved ones of those injured and killed, including NYPD officer Didarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh. In the statement, CAIR’s officials condemned people who blame the shooting on Muslims and Palestinians without evidence.
The New York Post reported the arrest of two apparent protesters at the scene, including one who shouted, “Free Palestine, I’m not the shooter.” PolitiFact asked an NYPD spokesperson about these two individuals, but the spokesperson referred us to the July 28 press conferencewhich does not mention the arrests.
The burden of proof is on the speaker. We rate the claim that the shooting suspect shouted “free Palestine” and wore a keffiyeh False.
