ARLINGTON, Va. — Local and federal officials identified James Yoo, 56, as the man whose home exploded Monday evening in Arlington. During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, officials said remains presumed to belong to Yoo were found inside the home.
The explosion was one of the top trendings topics around the world Monday night. Many social media users speculated about the suspect before police identified him – which, of course, means the opportunity for misinformation to spread.
One post on Twitter/X got more than 2,500 shares and 4,500,000 views. It posted a screen recording of what it claimed was Yoo posting videos to YouTube and responding to comments on them after the house blew up.
QUESTION
Did an account belonging to James Yoo post to YouTube after the explosion of his Arlington home?
SOURCES
ANSWER
The account in question misrepresented itself by claiming it was Yoo's.
WHAT WE FOUND
According to the Arlington County Police Department, the explosion happened at approximately 8:25 p.m. Monday after its officers attempted to communicate with Yoo and get him out of the house. The Arlington County Fire Department tweeted that the fire was under control at 10:39 p.m.
Yoo had a LinkedIn page and a YouTube channel that are linked to each other.
He created the YouTube channel with the handle @JamesYoo47 on November 2. He posted 14 videos. Each of them consisted of pictures of documents related to lawsuits and complaints he filed against federal agencies. The most recent of those videos was posted on November 7.
The tweet in question refers to a separate account with a similar handle, @JamesYoo_. It only uploaded two videos and both were posted Tuesday morning, several hours after the explosion that police believe killed Yoo.
Both YouTube channels and Yoo's LinkedIn page were taken down Tuesday. WUSA9 viewed all three before they were removed. His YouTube page remains available via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, as does the page claiming to be his.