Asked about President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theory about a plane “loaded with thugs” who were intent on disrupting the Republican National Convention last week, Vice President Mike Pence invoked Detroit with his own lie.
“I know in Detroit there were a large number of arrests several weeks ago and the vast majority of people were from out of state,” Pence said on Fox News' “Special Report with Bret Baier.”
That never happened, the Detroit Police Department confirmed.
“I’m not sure what he is referring to but as for the arrests made at the protest on Aug. 22, we mentioned that there were both Detroit residents and metro Detroit residents arrested and one person from California,” DPD spokeswoman Nicole Kirkwood tells Metro Times.
Detroit police arrested large groups of protesters a handful of times since demonstrations broke out on May 29, and each time, a vast majority of the protesters were from Detroit or the suburbs.
The lies began when Trump claimed in an interview with Fox News on Monday that unspecified forces were orchestrating protests in Washington, D.C. during the Republican National Convention.
“We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend. And in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that,” Trump said.
That conspiracy theory was strikingly similar to a viral Facebook post that falsely claimed, “At least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise from Seattle, dressed head to toe in black.”
The man who made the post, an Idaho man, warned residents, “Be ready for attacks downtown and residential areas.”
