Photo shows Derek Chauvin in Make Whites Great Again cap? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

Viral messages on social media claim to show Derek Chauvin in a photo where he is wearing a red “Make Whites Great Again” baseball cap.

Derek Chauvin is the Minneapolis police officer who has been named as the officer that knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a black man that subsequently died in hospital after his arrest.

FALSE

Despite the claims, the man in the baseball cap is not the police officer Derek Chauvin. In fact, the man in the baseball cap is called Jonathan Lee Riches, a professional Internet troll and a former federal prisoner incarcerated for wire fraud.

Riches is notorious for filing lawsuits against well-known personalities and entities, as well as harassing anti-Trump protestors. Among Riches alleged and incredibly bizarre antics include posing as the uncle of the Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, filing an injunction against the Guinness Book of World Records for an entry about him that didn’t even exist, and claiming that he taught famous scammer Bernie Madoff how to commit identity theft.


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Riches has been involved in numerous lawsuits, the majority of which are frivolous and dismissed. Some, however, have garnered a lot of media attention.

There is no known connection between Riches and officer Derek Chauvin. Another photo of Riches is below for comparison.

And here is another photo Riches posted on a Facebook group in support of Gregory and Travis McMichael, two of the men charged with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, wearing the same hat and shirt.

As such, we rank the claim that the photo shows Derek Chauvin as false.

Other rumours purport to show Derek Chauvin smiling on stage at a Donald Trump rally. These are also false as discussed here.

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