By Pascal Ibe
Claim
Recently, X user, Leko Shoba posted a photo of man arrested by US police and claimed it was because he declared himself Jesus Christ.
Verdict
This is Misleading.
Findings showed that the man, Cody Lee Miller who appeared on the photo was arrested in 2016 after he climbed down from the tree outside the downtown Macy’s where he had spent the night in a makeshift nest of branches.
Full Text
An X user, Leko Shoba posted photo of a man arrested by US police and claimed it was because the man declared himself Jesus Christ.
The post by the X user reads, “Breaking News: This man claims to be Jesus Christ, he has been arrested in Texas USA 🇺🇸, when he told police that he was Jesus Christ. The police told him that this was too early for Jesus to return!!!
The post generated over 173k views, 522 reposts and over 1.7 likes.
In the modern world, one will reason that nobody would believe that this post is true. But surprisingly, comments on this post showed that many X users agreed that this was true.
See comments below 👇
So FactWatch decided to fact check this claim
Verification
Trying to verify this, FactWatch observed that this claim has been shared many times by some X users and blogs.
When we checked the photo on image verification tool, results from TinEye indicated that the photo first appeared on the website, The Seattle Times on March 25 , 2016.
This photo appeared on 25 different websites, TinEye showed.
When we traced the photo to Seattle Times, report on the website confirmed that the man on the photo was Cody Lee Miller, a 28 year old man who was arrested after he climbed down from the tree outside the downtown Macy’s where he had spent the night in a makeshift nest of branches.
Screenshot from The Seattle Times
Police and firefighters responded to Stewart Street and Third Avenue around 11:20 a.m. Tuesday after the man, later identified as Miller, threw an apple at someone and then climbed about 70 feet up the sequoia tree in a street median.
From there, he threw green seed cones and branches he’d ripped from the tree, prosecutors alleged in the certificate of probable cause. The police also say he threatened to throw feces.
Several passers-by and cars were hit by the cones, police said, and one officer suffered a cut on the ear from a “rock hard” cone, court documents say.
Police said the man claimed to be carrying a knife.
During the ensuing 25 hours, police said Miller ignored negotiators, and he drew a large crowd of onlookers. His antics earned him an Internet following as #ManInTree.
Another United States media, USA Today also reported that this story.
Conclusion
Claim by X user that photo of man arrested by US police was because declared himself Jesus Christ, is Misleading.
Findings showed that the photo is an unrelated incident to the claim which happened in 2016.
