CLAIM: A video of ransacked Chicago Walmart — featuring cash registers destroyed and merchandise on the floor as sirens blare — was taken in 2023.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video does show a Walmart store in Chicago, however the clip dates back to at least June, 2020. The store in the clip, in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood, was shuttered last Sunday.

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a video of a ransacked Chicago Walmart store, falsely suggsting it was taken in recent days.

The 15-second video shows destroyed merchandise, empty aisles and damaged cash registers inside of a Walmart Neighborhood Market store.

Many users posting the video aren’t explicitly saying when it was taken, but imply the footage is recent. “A SECOND Chicago WalMart has been looted and ransacked beyond belief. Here’s the aftermath,” reads an Instagram post from Tuesday with more than 23,000 likes as of Saturday.

Some explicitly claimed it was taken last weekend, when the retail chain shuttered four stores in the city. “Walmart closed 4 stores in Chicago yesterday. This is how the residents thanked them for their contributions to the community. Looted almost everything,” reads a tweet sharing the video on Monday.

However, this video was first posted on social media on June 1, 2020, amid unrest in the city after the police killing of George Floyd. The video was posted by a local journalist with the caption, “Inside the Walmart at 47th street & cottage #chicago #chicagolooting,” in a thread that included other photos of the destruction at the store and elsewhere in the Kenwood neighborhood.

The intersection identified in the tweet was the site of a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Kenwood. Images of the store on Google Maps match the video, including the same green bagging stations and yellow angled beams near one of the entrances.

Local news outlets at the time also reported on the damage amid protests at several Walmarts, including the Kenwood location. A photo in the Chicago Tribune of the same store shows similar trashed green checkouts and is also dated June 1.

Walmart confirmed that there has been no such recent damage to its Chicago locations.

“We haven’t had any reports of damage to our Chicago locations,” Walmart spokesperson Charles Crowson told The Associated Press in an email. “The video in question isn’t current and is likely several years old.”

The Kenwood store was among the four locations Walmart closed in Chicago last Sunday. In a public statement, the company said the stores have never been profitable and were losing “tens of millions of dollars a year,” with annual losses doubling in the past five years.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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