A photo shows a police officer named Kathleen Ballinger who has recently gone missing in Wakefield.
False. The photo shows a police officer called Kennedy Ballinger who works for the Middletown Division of Police in Ohio, in the United States, and who has not gone missing. West Yorkshire Police told us they are not appealing for any missing officers.
A Facebook post claiming to show a police officer who has gone missing in Wakefield is being shared online, but it’s not a genuine alert.
The post, which was added to a community group for Leeds and Wakefield, says: “URGENT!! Attention #wakefield residents: Be on the look out, the police need help in locating Female Officer KATHLEEN BALLINGER (27) who went missing yesterday morning.” It goes on to say that her car was found “last night” and that a “silver alert” has been issued for her.
But the woman in the photo is not a police officer in Wakefield. It shows an officer named Kennedy Ballinger, who works for the Middletown Division of Police in Ohio, in the United States.
In a separate Facebook post, the Middletown Division of Police confirmed she has not gone missing, and advised people to “do some digging” before sharing these kinds of posts. It added: “If it’s legit, you would see it right here on our page or see it on the news wherever you live. The easiest thing to look for is if the comments have been turned off.”
Derbyshire Police Online Safety Team in the UK have also previously said a disabled comments section may be a sign of a hoax post.
Moreover, West Yorkshire Police who operate in Wakefield confirmed to Full Fact that the post is a hoax, and that they are not appealing for any missing officers.
There are several other signs this is a hoax post, including that almost identical posts sharing the same photo appear in community groups across the US at the same time. The post also refers to a “silver alert”, which is a way of notifying the public about missing vulnerable people that only operates in the US, and not in the UK.
We’ve written before about similar posts falsely raising the alarm for missing children, elderly people, abandoned infants and injured dogs in Facebook community groups. Our investigation into these types of hoax posts found they’re often edited later to include links to surveys, freebies or cheap housing. In February, we found these hoax posts continue to be an issue, with at least 47 communities across the UK being victim to nine different hoaxes we fact checked that month.
You can find out more by watching an episode of BBC One’s Rip Off Britain in which our investigation is featured. Our guide also offers some tips on how to identify such hoaxes.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the photo shows a police officer named Kennedy Ballinger who works for the Middletown Division of Police in Ohio, United States, and who has not gone missing. West Yorkshire Police told us they are not appealing for any missing officers.
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