Actor and public school employee Howard Eady spreads fake news
A public school employee who is also an actor recently spread fake news that ICE was raiding a nearby graduation ceremony last Friday.
In a viral video, still up as of today, Howard Eady says a nearby school, which he can’t pronounce, was having its graduation ceremony. He is a “behavior interventionist and educator who’s worked with kids for over 20 years.”
The TikTok video alone has 2.5 million views and he said on Instagram the video has more than 10 million views.
“Gratas, I believe, elementary, was having their graduation and all of a sudden a bunch of parents have to run out because Isis [ICE] is there. This is the story that I’m hearing,” Eady said. It is called “Gratts Elementary School.”
The story, however, is completely fake.
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said, “no such event happened.”
“What is possible is, considering the level of fear and awareness in our community, if you see three unmarked vehicles, three mini-vans, three SUVs, driving through a neighborhood, obviously you’re going to suspect that that may be a possibility,” he said Monday. “We believe that that may have been the case,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
That has not stopped the story from spreading – Eady’s Change.org petition continues to garner signatures, even today.
The petition states:
The child I work with didn’t show up to school because his family was afraid — not of grades, or safety, or behavior… but of ICE.
That’s not education. That’s trauma.
We’re calling on school districts and local officials to publicly affirm that:
Schools should be safe zones for every child, regardless of immigration status
ICE enforcement has no place in or around our schools
Families should never have to choose between education and fear.
This isn’t political — it’s personal.
When families are afraid to send their kids to school, it hurts all of us
Buzzfeed News helped spread the fake news, though it buried a disclosure near the bottom indicating there was no proof the story happened.
Since Donald Trump took office and began enforcing immigration law, fake news stories of ICE raids have quickly spread.
Loyola University Chicago students confused a census taker with an ICE agent, causing panic, as previously reported by The College Fix.
A public school in Chicago also confused Secret Service agents with ICE in January.
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Public school employee Howard Eady shares a fake story about ICE raiding an elementary school graduation; Howard Eady/TikTok