Does CCTV footage show shoplifters foiling armed robber? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A video spreading virally claims to show CCTV footage of the moment two would-be shoplifters turned unlikely heroes after preventing an armed robbery.

FALSE

The video starts as two teenagers try and shoplift a convenience store, with one distracting the shopkeeper while the other begins to take items from the shelf. However their plan is interrupted as a gun wielding armed robber enter the store. The two teens proceed to distract the robber with one of their skateboards before tackling him to the ground, disarming him, passing his weapon to the shopkeepers and quickly exiting the premises.

The video has spreading virally on social media, with most captions claiming it shows genuine CCTV footage of an attempted store robbery, usually attributed to somewhere inside the United States. The video can be seen below.

How’s this not a movie scene?

Craziest convenience store footage you’ve ever seen! Watch till the end.

However the video isn’t genuine. In fact it is a promotional video for a [then] upcoming US teen drama series on Facebook Watch called Five Points.


Sponsored Content. Continued below...




The video was originally uploaded by the Five Points Facebook page on February 2018, a few months before the first season premiered.

The clip features two of the characters from the show, CJ and Ronnie, played by actors Raymond Cham Jr. and Jahking Guillory respectively. The original version of the video (linked to above) includes the Five Points promotional screen appearing near the end of the video which has subsequently been edited out of hoax versions.

As such, the video does not show a genuine armed robbery caught on CCTV. Claims that it does are inaccurate.