Colombian Man Killed Over False Kidnapping Accusations

Three men were lynched in Bogotá on October 24 over the kidnapping of a boy from Ciudad Bolivar, a rural district of the city. Although the authorities tried to intervene and took the wounded men to the hospital, one died at the site of the crime.

Accused of unrelated crimes, the men were being taken to a local correctional facility when they were attacked by a mob believing them to be the kidnappers. Policemen on site tried to intervene and sustained stab wounds. Official police vehicles were also vandalized.

After the authorities disarmed the mob, the wounded were taken to Meissen Hospital for urgent medical care. One of the men did not survive his injuries and died at the hospital.

Lieutenant William Zuleta, commander of the Ciudad Bolivar precinct, expressed his disappointment with the situation, saying, “Due to false, bad news, aggressive circumstances are created on the part of the community against three citizens. They hurt them.”

According to the police, the misinformation was spread through the popular messaging service WhatsApp, and residents of Ciudad Bolivar encircled the accused, believing them culpable for a supposed wave of child kidnapping in recent days. Many of the stories shared were in fact recycled, with different names and pictures of children attached to the same story.

One bizarre false alert claimed that a couple was systematically kidnapping babies throughout the whole country; the images shared to identify the couple were those of celebrities Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin.

Cali State Secretary for Safety Andrés Villamizar said that the spread of fake news tends to increase in frequency around Halloween. “We ask that you do not contribute to unnecessary panic,” he said. “Please fact-check these messages before passing them on.”