As Chicago prepared to welcome roughly 50,000 people for the four-day 2024 Democratic National Convention from Aug. 19-22, an X post warned that even more people had poured in to demonstrate.
“BREAKING: According to GPS tracking data: At least 53,411 foreign Antifa and 21,034 domestic Antifa are already gathering in Chicago, to create chaos during the Harris-Walz DNC,” read the Aug. 17 post.
The post also shared a picture of a crowd of helmeted people dressed in black, standing arm-in-arm on a street, their faces covered with scarves.
But this photo doesn’t show antifa in Chicago. And Chicago police have not said antifa is gathering in Chicago in such large numbers.
A reverse image search shows the photo in the post was taken Aug. 17, 2019, in Portland, Oregon by Getty Images photographer Stephanie Keith. Getty’s photo archive includes this image description: “Members of Antifa line up during an alt-right rally on August 17, 2019 in Portland, Oregon. Anti-fascism demonstrators gathered to counter-protest a rally held by far-right, extremist groups.”
Antifa, which stands for “anti-fascist,” is a loosely organized coalition of left-wing activists who protest far-right ideologies and white supremacy. The movement has been around for decades, but it became more active following former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election.
Although demonstrators have gathered in Chicago to protest the war in Gaza, security officials have not identified antifa as a major influence. PBS News and The Associated Press reported Aug. 19 that pro-Palestinian protest organizers had hoped for 20,000 protesters at the DNC that day, but fewer showed up.
Police have neither given a crowd estimate, nor have they discussed antifa as a major force in the demonstrations.
When we contacted the Chicago Police Department about the X post’s claim, the agency pointed us to an Aug. 13 press conference about police efforts for the DNC.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said during the press conference that police were working with the U.S. Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism to monitor DNC-related social media activity.
“A lot of times we’ll hear threats or we’ll see things,” Snelling said. “We look at the credibility of it, but obviously, we take them all seriously. So when we see something that we think could be volatile, we get out in front of it and put preventative measures in place.”
PolitiFact also reviewed Day 1 and Day 2 of the city of Chicago’s press conferences and found no mentions of antifa gathering in the city.
After the convention’s first day, news reports described several demonstrations against U.S. support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas war by pro-Palestinian protesters. Police arrested 13 protesters on the first day — mostly in connection with pushing down fences placed on the DNC convention center’s perimeter, according to the AP and CNN.
The city of Chicago installed a third row of fencing around the United Center’s perimeter, where the keynotes addresses are being held, after dozens of protesters “breached the outer barrier,” CNN reported Aug. 19.
But we found no evidence from police or in on-the-scene news reports that demonstrators linked to antifa played a dominant role.
We rate the claim that a photo shows “Antifa are already gathering in Chicago, to create chaos during the Harris-Walz DNC” False.
Via AP