RETRACTION: And the wall came tumbling down…but not during Hurricane Hanna
Yesterday, Occupy Democrats published a story in good faith that included the video attached below which was posted on Twitter and claimed to be footage of a portion of Donald Trump’s newly constructed border wall being knocked over by the powerful winds from Hurricane Hannah.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that it was a Sunday, we were unable to obtain comments from government officials to confirm the claims and decided that because the story had already been published by several reputable news organizations that it was likely a breaking news story and was true.
It was only today that we learned the truth behind the video footage.
While it does show a portion of the border wall being knocked over by high winds and rain, in fact, the video was not taken during the recent landfall of Hurricane Hanna in Texas, but was actually taken at a construction site in June in New Mexico, government officials say.
Here is the statement released by officials at the U.S. Customs and Broder Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security about the video.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is not aware of any border wall panels falling over due to Hurricane Hanna hitting the Rio Grande Valley Sector this past weekend. The video circulating on social media appears to be from June 2020 when high winds caused several border wall panels that were pending additional anchoring to fall over at a construction site near Deming, New Mexico. That project is funded by the Department of Defense using 2808 Military Construction Funds, so any questions regarding the incident should be directed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The original poster of the video, journalist Yadith Valdez, has deleted the original tweet, which is still available from other sources on Twitter.
Occupy Democrats apologizes profusely for the error.
We make every effort to ensure that we do not propagate “fake news” and, in this instance, we let our audience — and ourselves — down.
Please be assured that we will do everything in our power to prevent this from happening again and regain your trust as a reliable source of real news that is thoroughly fact-checked and free of dubious claims.
We are humbled and hope that you will accept our deepest apologies for the error.
Trump wall falls on the Mexico USA border pic.twitter.com/85Cr3OXuty
— GABRIEL DIZ MENDOZA (@GABRIELDIZMEND1) July 26, 2020
