Cop Who Arrested Malia Obama Found Dead-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Reports that a Chicago police officer who arrested Malia Obama on drug charges was found dead began circulating in August 2017.
The Truth:
Malia Obama has never been arrested, and the claim that the cop who arrested her was found dead is the latest twist in a long-running false narrative about the former first daughter’s arrest.
The story appeared at OurLandoftheFree.com under the headline, “Cop who Arrested Malia Obama Found Dead,” on August 12, 2017. Building on earlier false reports that Malia Obama was arrested in Chicago, the report claims that the arresting officer, Sgt. Melvin Smythe, was found dead in an ally after responding to a reported sexual assault call:
The arrest was made by police Sgt. Marvin Smythe, a 19-year veteran of the Chicago police force, who witnessed Malia entering the residence of Samuel B. Johnson – a man released from prison by her father during his mass clemency for drug dealers.
Johnson, now known as Rahim al-Rahim ever since he converted to Islam and joined the Muslim Brotherhood in prison, quickly took over the Chicago drug game upon his release and began funneling money directly to ISIS via a shell company. He was found hanging from the ceiling of his cell shortly after he cut a deal with prosecutors to provide details of his relationship to ISIS and with the Obamas. Though no autopsy was performed, his death was ruled a suicide.
Sgt. Smythe was found dead in an alley after responding to a call about a sexual assault at a nearby residence. According to local news station KBXY, someone shot him four times in the back and once in the neck.
The first clue that this story is a hoax is the photo that accompanies it. It shows a uniformed Chicago police officer that’s presumed to be Sgt. Melvin Smythe. A reverse Google image search reveals that it’s actually a stock image from 2013 that was taken from the image-sharing site Flickr.
And OurLandoftheFree.com is a well-known, and self-described, fake news website. The website’s “About Us” page states that it “makes no guarantee that anything you find here will be based at all in reality,” and that “all posts should be considered satirical.”
Malia Obama has become a favorite target of right-wing fake and satirical news sites. The claim that the cop who arrested her was found dead is the latest variation on a long-running false narrative that Malia Obama was arrested with “a gang of thugs” in Chicago. Another variation is that Harvard expelled Obama because of her pending criminal charges.
Malia Obama has never been arrested, and none of these reports are true.