A battle among competing narratives has developed in Minnesota. If you follow the news, you have undoubtedly seen at least some of the stories about recent shootings.

The first news reports about crisis events are often filled with inaccurate information (Spiro and Starbird, 2024; Zeng, Starbird, and Spiro, 2016). People want to understand what happened. They want to make sense of events. We all search for information. While we are searching for accurate information, people often push rumors and narratives for their own reasons. Some of those people push false rumors and narratives – that is, disinformation.

The old idiom: A lie can run around the world before the truth has laced up its shoes. The truth is slow to start; it takes time for accurate information to become clear and be released. Rumors and false narratives don’t have to wait. With the shootings in Minnesota, you can find reliable descriptions of exactly what happened. Many people have shared their cellphone videos, and there is a lot of detailed information. I advise discretion in looking at all information.

As with most news in the US, there are competing narratives about the shootings by ICE officers. Conservative news media and social media posters have focused on the protestors. They have argued that the protestors were violent. They’ve suggested the two individuals who were shot........

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