Did AK-47 wielding grandmother really save cops from street gang – Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A story spreading online claims that a grandmother armed with an AK-47 gun saved police officers being attacked by a street gang.

FALSE

The grandmother, identified in the story as Wendy Robinson, apparently helped several police offers after they had become involved in a shootout between gang members in Los Angeles.

The story can be traced back to the website WorldNewsDailyReport.com, that reads in part –

GRANDMOTHER WITH AK-47 SAVES COPS BEING ATTACKED BY STREET GANG
Los Angeles, CA | Officers of the LAPD received some totally unexpected backup yesterday, during a firefight with local gang members in the Watts neighborhood, as an elderly lady with an assault rifle showed up and scared the criminals away.
Officers Ricardo Cordova and Frank Cho were responding to a call concerning a presumed drug deal in a parking lot when they came under fire from members of a local street gang.
The policemen rapidly found themselves in a perilous situation, being inferior to their attackers in both numbers and firepower.
Fortunately for them, 79-year old Wendy Robinson was watching the events from her kitchen window and decided to intervene.

However the story is fake, and yet another entry from well-known spoof website WorldNewsDailyReport.com.

This particular spoof news site makes its name by creating completely faked and almost-unbelievable crimes or incidents related to crime, which it invariably pairs with a random mugshot or photo found elsewhere on the Internet.

WorldNewsDailyReport.com is extremely successful, namely down to the sites ability of creating crazy sounding crimes that just about lie of the cusp of believability. The site has been active for a number of years and had enjoyed viral success numerous times with similar sounding headlines.


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And this story is another example of a fake headline gone viral. While we were unable to track the identity of the women in the photo, a reverse image search reveals she has been the subject of various online memes long before the article was penned in 2015 or 2016.

And more sceptical and eagle eyed readers of the website will take note of the tagline attached to the site that reads “where facts don’t matter” and see the disclaimer on the site at the bottom of each article that reads –

World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.

As such, the story about this particular old lady’s exploits are entirely fictitious.

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