Video of a man playing Imperial March to troll the police is from 2019

As the George Floyd murder protests intensify across the globe, social media is abuzz with videos of innovative ways of protest. The latest one is of a man who can be seen playing the Imperial March theme from Star Wars in front of the police. 

With the tension growing between protesters and police in the US, the idea of playing Darth Vader’s theme to troll the police is resonating with netizens, including Star Wars-actor Mark Hamill. 

Many people have been sharing this video assuming it as a reaction against police brutality in the US. But that is not the fact. The viral video is old and available on the internet since 2019. 

What’s in the video about?

As a group of policemen pass by, a person shooting the video prompts his friend to play the trumpet. He plays the Imperial March theme from Star Wars. Another man gives him high-five appreciating his presence of mind.

American basketball player Rex Chapman tweeted the video expressing his approval: This dude trolling the police with Star Wars – Imperial March is exactly the Twitter content I am here for today. (Archive)

Mark Hamill responded to this tweet with big smileys and Hearts.

Archive

Soon the media followed the trend and reported on this video. Free Press Journal published an article based on this tweet while assuming that the viral video was from the George Floyd protests. The video is being shared on Facebook by users who took it as a recent incident that happened during an ongoing protest in the US. 

Free Press Journal | Archive

FACT-CHECK

Upon searching with simple key-words, we found that the video is available on the internet since February 2019.

The man playing the Imperial March in front of police was the first to upload the video on YouTube on February 8th, 2019. It is titled as “French Man trolling cops with imperial march”. The same video was shared by several users on YouTube.

Many Twitter users had also shared this video back then. One user tweeted: “French Yellow Vest protester trolls the police with the help of The Imperial March from Star Wars.”

Archive

One Twitter user shared this video saying it to be from Mairie Vieux Port, Marseille, France. To authenticate the location of this video, we took the help of Google Maps. We were able to find the exact location of this video from where it could have been taken. You can see that spot in the below embedded Google map. 

It is now confirmed that the video is from France and the incident is not a recent one, the video is available on the internet from early 2019 however the date of this incident is yet to be ascertained. 

CONCLUSION

The man playing the Imperial March theme from Star Wars in front of police is not from the ongoing George Floyd protests in America. The video is from France and is available on the internet since February 2019. Hence, it is an old video that is being falsely being circulated as a recent incident.