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Claim about teen shot at prom is fabricated, image likely AI-generated | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall   Paste BN
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The claim: Man killed officer's daughter at prom out of retaliation for son's death

A May 28 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a man's mugshot, along with a small picture of a police officer posing with a girl in a dress.

"This is 45 years old Douglass Barnes," reads text within the typo-riddled post. "His son 19 year old Gino Barnes was sshot and kylled during a traffic stop by sergeant Mike McCaffrey when reaching for his insurance information from the glove box. In return Douglass Barnes waited on 17 year old Samantha McCaffrey the daughter of Mike McCaffrey to exit her limo on prom night, sshot and kylled her then screamed out 'Eye for an Eye'. He waited on the police to arrive (sic)."

The post garnered more than 800 likes in one day. A previous version of the claim accumulated more than 1,000 likes on Instagram before it was deleted. Similar versions of the claim were shared on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter.

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Our rating: False

There are no credible reports of such a shooting. The story originated from a TikTok account that regularly shares fabricated crime stories paired with AI-generated images.

No evidence of prom shooting

The story was originally shared on TikTok on May 28 by an account called Dax News. The post's caption says the supposed shooting took place in Livonia, Michigan.

But no such shootings were reported in Livonia by credible news sources, nor have any recent shootings involving people named Douglass Barnes, Gino Barnes, Mike McCaffrey or Samantha McCaffrey.

The Livonia Police Department did not respond to a request for comment. Its website and social media don't mention anything about such a shooting.

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AI-detection tool Hive Moderation reported the image of the supposed shooter used in the Instagram post was 99.5% likely to be AI-generated. The tool produced similar results for many other images shared by the TikTok account before they were taken down.

There are no credible reports to back up any of the other supposed breaking news shared by the account.

A TikTok account with a similar username shared a post on May 30 calling the deleted posts "an experiment."

"EVERY SINGLE STORY I posted on Dax News was generated by AI," reads the post's caption. "The 'articles' are really just short stories that I created condensed into the format of a news article."

Paste BN reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response. When reached for comment, Dax News did not provide evidence that the story in the post was real.

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