Fact Check

Is This What Police Uniforms in Norway Look Like?

A photograph purportedly showing a group of Norwegian police officers in skintight uniforms was digitally manipulated.

Published July 3, 2017

Claim:
A photograph shows Norwegian police officers in their skintight Summer uniforms.

An old photograph purportedly showing police officers in Norway wearing tight summer uniforms took another lap around the internet after theGrumpy Old Folk Facebook page posted it in June 2017:

Meanwhile in Norway...Norwegian police uniforms in the Summer are very popular with many women...

This image has been digitally altered to make the uniforms appear tighter and various muscles (and other body parts) appear bigger.

Photographer Toni Kaarttinen posted the original image,which shows officers in Oslo, Norway, to Flickr on 28 July 2010.  Here's a comparison of Kaarttinen's genuine photograph (left) and the altered version (right):

When the doctored image made its first appearance in 2015, Kaarttinen told the English-language Norwegian newspaper The Local:

"I was following a Facebook group and suddenly there was a picture that looked really familiar, so I had to go and check, 'is it my picture?'. At first I was a bit surprised and maybe just a little bit disappointed, because there was no request, but then I thought it was kind of amusing."

Sources

The Local.   "Norway Police Pic Sends Temperatures Soaring."     1 July 2015.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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