Did Oklahoma City Police Shoot Each Other Trying to Shoot a Black Teenager?

In early August 2020, what looked like a news item about Oklahoma police officers accidentally shooting at one another while “trying to shoot a black teenager” spread on Facebook and Twitter:

Those who clicked through to the link were directed to an apparent news article on IhlayaNews.com, which read:

According to a report, two Oklahoma City Police Department officers shot each other in an attempt to shoot an African American teenager they were chasing.

Ray(not his real name) was running from the police after a squad car pulled over next to him while he was walking home from the Apple store. He heard the officer say “suspect is in the position of the stolen phone and he looks armed and dangerous”.

That item linked to yet another separate site, globalnea.com, and an article making the same claims. Neither site had an obvious or easy to spot “satire” disclaimer, but the first site — ilhayanews.com — was the subject of a viral hoax in November 2019. That claim was about a hotel cleaner who purportedly “stole” a used condom, and later sued a wealthy hotel guest for child support:

At the time, we observed:

Ihlaya News’ header has faint text reading “nuusparodie waarvan jy hou,” which was translated by Africa Check:

“Ihlaya News” roughly translates, from isiZulu, as “crazy person news”. The site’s tagline is “nuusparodie waarvan jy hou” — Afrikaans for “news parody that you like”.

As such, the story about two Oklahoma police officers accidentally shooting one another in an attempt to “shoot a black teenager” was from a “news parody” website — also known as “fake news” or “junk news.” The story was published in June 2020, but likely resurfaced in August 2020 due to the circulation of a separate parody news item on the site titled “Courtroom shocked after black teen requested to be tried as a white man.” (That too was “satire.”)