Drudge apparently had a link to this video up earlier. The gyst is that a mob tore a woman out of a car and beat her. Presumably to death. It surfaced on Drudge, though it was apparently on "World’s Wildest Street Fights Volume 1 (2002)," which I gather is something like those sorority girls spring break video, minus the sex and plus blood. The video itself isn't remarkably graphic, though it's difficult to stomach under the pretense that it is real and that you are watching a woman being beaten to death.

I watched it a couple times and, though despite its size it is not the best barometer of things, my gut tells me that it's staged. The Oakland Police are looking in to it and don't have a match. Presumably the folks that released the video are going to be contacted. So if I'm wrong we'll probably hear about it.

Why I think it's fake:

1. It ended up on a video collection. The producers of the DVD - presumably the ones that added the narrator - likely would have contacted the police if they thought it might be real. The OPD would know about it before now.
2. Despite the graphic nature, the victim does not take any obviously hard hits. She certainly doesn't look comfortable, but the worst stuff is conveniently obscured. The timing of the tape cutting out is also mighty convenient.
3. Who is this narrator and how does he know so much about the story? This ties in to #1, I guess, but it seems to me that if this is going to be a commercial venture, you don't go behind the police's back.
4. The forced disrobing is at once convenient for sex appeal and conveniently obscured.

On the other hand, here are reasons I could be wrong:

1. There's a lot of shady folks out there. I don't know how big the release of this DVD was. It may have been a really small thing that they thought wouldn't make it any higher.
2. Who am I to say what is and is not a hard hit? And while she didn't take any hard hits, the car was destroyed. Would they really destroy a car for a 3:48 segment on a video? (Maybe, if it didn't run anyway).
3. They could have made the story up. So the violence could be genuine, but the context not so much. The explanation they give is the most obvious if given the raw tape.
4. The victim isn't an obvious leading lady. She looks a tad bit heavy. And there's an awful lot of people there. How would something like this get organized?

On the whole, though, I gotta think it's fake. We'll see. View at your own risk and all that, though.

[via XRLQ]

Update: My bad, it's apparently real.