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an image describing "bait bricks"

I've seen this image shared on social media, original source unknown. Is there clear evidence that piles of bricks have been placed in the path of protestors far away from any construction site in order to induce destructive rioting, and if so, how common are these?

Transcript:

WELL HOWDY!

I'm just a mysterious pile o' bricks

I've been seen at many of the recent BLM protests sitting around areas of no construction or carefully removed from things like streets or sidewalks and placed in neat, easy-to-grab piles!

DO NOT REACH FOR ME! I AM INTENTIONALLY PLACED HERE TO CREATE VIOLENCE!

This is used to delegitimize the movement and allows for more force to be used. Instead, alert those around me that I am a trap, and document me with photo and video evidence using #BAITBRICKS

Do not share this post directly! Copy and paste the photo to your own page so no one is targeted!

Community
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curiousdannii
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    I did see someone share an article about these on Facebook this morning (with no suggestion that they were a trap, just that they were there), but I'll be darned if I can find it again. – F1Krazy Jun 02 '20 at 14:44
  • Googling "piles of bricks" brings up many news reports from RT, NBC, Fox, etc, such as these: https://www.rt.com/usa/490444-bricks-appear-mysteriously-cities-riots/ , https://www.newsweek.com/missouri-police-discover-large-piles-bricks-rocks-used-during-riot-amid-george-floyd-protest-1507891 I'm still not sure what the claim is though. – ventsyv Jun 02 '20 at 15:08
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    @ventsyv the claim is that someone is leaving big piles of bricks near protest routes hoping they'll be thrown. It's unclear who is doing this, but it's pretty clearly being done. Maybe it's white supremacists trying to make the protests look bad, maybe it's leftist extremists hoping this becomes a full-on revolution. – Ryan_L Jun 02 '20 at 16:16
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    @Ryan_L So is it "Someone is placing bricks" or is it "Right wing extremists are placing bricks"? Right wing people claim it's democratic mayors and / or George Soros by the way. There are also many different reports - are we to validate all of them? Do all of them have to be intentional? Is the claim that all of those are connected / organized by the same mastermind? – ventsyv Jun 02 '20 at 16:33
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    It seems to me that _anybody_ placing piles of bricks "intentionally ... to create violence" would be notable, so I'm not really sure why we need to decide _who_ before looking for evidence. That strikes me as like saying "we won't examine your a claim to have seen aliens unless you name their home planet". – IMSoP Jun 02 '20 at 18:58
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    In order to show that these palettes of bricks were recently placed there will probably be evidence of who placed them. Indeed, I've seen videos purporting to show them being placed. Hopefully someone can write a good answer with reliable evidence. – curiousdannii Jun 02 '20 at 23:39
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    here is a link to an article that fact checked four different piles of bricks near protests . I don't want to conclude that this disproves intentional brick placement but is evidence against intentional brick placement. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/investigating-bricks-at-protests – Noah Jun 03 '20 at 03:19
  • A young man insisted to me yesterday that the *police* placed bricks in my home town, which has had light protesting and no violence. I've read every local paper and followed every local news story, and there's zero mention of bricks. Further, historically, most construction in this area is timber. There's very few brick buildings. A pallet of bricks would be very unusual. –  Jun 05 '20 at 16:59
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    @Noah That basically answers this question, but also demonstrates a much more terrifying reality: public construction projects are woefully slow. –  Jun 05 '20 at 18:10
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    @Noah That post now lists 17 different cases. You ought to post it as an answer to this question. – Kyralessa Jun 18 '20 at 08:42

1 Answers1

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A June 2, 2020 Buzzfeed News article looked at this claim.

They fact-checked 17 different claims of piles of bricks being left near protests, including photos of the bricks and the results of their investigation as to the source.

Most bait bricks were from construction sites with previous permits explaining construction. Several police departments tweeted the construction permits and contacted the construction companies to either cover or remove the bricks. In one case, a synagogue had placed barriers of stone in wire cages to protect their building.

BuzzFeed News conclude:

As of now, there's no evidence to support claims of coordinated brick placements at protests.

I don't want to conclude that this disproves intentional brick placement but is evidence against intentional brick placement.

Oddthinking
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Noah
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    It would be good to [edit] some of the key details from the linked article into your answer, so that it is more self-contained, and will stand alone even if the link becomes inaccessible for any reason. – IMSoP Jun 18 '20 at 13:24
  • @IMSoP much of the evidence is in the form of photos/ videos. I don't know how I could link key details besides for putting the actual link. If anyone could help me, either in a separate answer or by editing my current answer, that would be cool. – Noah Jun 18 '20 at 15:32
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    I think a description of what kind of evidence they've presented would be a good start. When answers reference a scientific paper, they don't need to include the full data from the paper, or even the full abstract. You could start off with the bolded numbered headings, and edit in a couple of the details, e.g. "4. A video shows two law enforcement officers unloading bricks from the back of their vehicle. Buzzfeed quotes the police saying that they had retrieved the bricks from a damaged sidewalk nearby and were storing them safely. The video has since been taken down by the author." – IMSoP Jun 18 '20 at 16:32