Police say they have increased patrols in portions of east Birmingham after multiple weekend social media posts about random gunfire at motorists, but authorities said they’ve received no official reports of such incidents since two shootings – one deadly - four days ago.

Early Thursday, Jan. 3, someone opened fire on an eastern Jefferson County mother and her three children while they were stopped at a traffic light on Old Springville Road. One of the bullets grazed a 14-year-old girl but she is OK, as were her siblings and her mother, Lajonia Jefferson.

Ten minutes later, Carltez “Tez” Clark, 28, died outside the Birmingham Police Department’s East Precinct shortly after 12:30 a.m. Thursday. He was raising his two girls - the youngest of whom lost her mother to gunfire in 2015.

Clark had gotten off work at Honda early Thursday morning and was a passenger in his girlfriend’s vehicle as the couple went to get something to eat. As they were traveling on Parkway East toward Center Point, police say a black male in a black, mid-sized car, pulled up alongside them and opened fire.

Clark told his girlfriend to turn and drive to the East Precinct on Red Lane Road, which she did. Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service responded to the scene, where Clark was pronounced dead.

Birmingham police said in both cases, the shooter was a black male driving a dark sedan and they believe the two shootings were possibly carried out by the same gunman. “We are not ruling anything out,’’ said Sgt. Johnny Williams. “But, based on the information that both agencies received, the time and close proximity, investigators believe they are related.’’

Since then, Facebook has been abuzz with similar tales of motorists’ cars being fired on or guns displayed on them while driving, but authorities say no one has reported that to police. There has also been talk about the random shootings being part of an ongoing gang initiation.

“We’ve only had the two shooting incidents that we know of,’’ Williams said. “We have not heard anything about a gang initiation.”

East Precinct Commander Capt. Allen Hatcher said concerned citizens have reached out to them after seeing the social media reports. In response, they’ve added extra patrols in Roebuck, along Springville Road and Edwards Lake Road. He said he’s not saying there haven’t or have been other shootings in the area but said none have been reported to them.

“Had we been called, we would have responded to the area,’’ Hatcher said. “Should someone be shot at, please make a report so we can investigate.”

Police across the U.S. over the past couple years have complained about Facebook-driven hysteria. A police chief in West Virginia last month - Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston - cautioned about “letting social media control the agenda is very dangerous to everybody — law enforcement, victims and suspects.”

His comments were in regard to a Facebook post that claimed a man was the victim of a hate crime due to his sexual orientation. In that case, it turned out that alcohol was a factor in the incident and the reported victim was actually the “aggressor and the instigator.”

In February 2018, Greensboro, N.C. police responded to reports of an active shooter at a mall. Police quickly found out that there was no evidence of a shooting as many people shared on Facebook, and instead several small fights involving teenagers that had sparked the shooting rumors.

“We are hearing that more things are active shooters when they actually haven’t been. So, it’s really only changed the number of things we’ve responded to,” Deputy Chief Mike Richey told Fox 8. "So, every one of those reports we have to go check out and we are going to go and check every one of these out because we can’t afford not to. Our biggest issue with it is it has drained our manpower, school administrators’ manpower, security manpower and really causing anxiousness in our communities and families.”

In 2017, A Nerf gun battle at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs was reported as shots fired, setting off a campus-wide panic that prompted a lockdown and left cadets huddled under their dorm room desks and some texting their parents goodbye, according to The Denver Post. Officials at the school said the false alarm drove a furor on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and Yikyak, which turned a minor incident into the “War of the Worlds.”

The list goes on as does the confusion for law enforcement as well as citizens. “After something has been copied and reposted several times, it’s hard to confirm its validity,’’ Hatcher said. “We are responding to everything, but we’d rather have people report it to us so that we have been information to investigate.”

Then on Friday, in Saraland, Ala., police issued a statement it had been “contacted and made aware of a Facebook post that claimed an act of human trafficking or an attempted abduction of a child related to human trafficking” had taken place at a local gas station. Police responded and after an investigation found out it was simply members of a women’s college basketball team making a pit stop at a convenience store.

Saraland police stated: “Making a post on social media with unverified claims only creates a stress and panic amongst the community that can be totally avoided through proper reporting through 9-1-1. Social media accounts for law enforcement agencies may or may not be monitored by departments on a minute by minute basis and if you feel threatened or feel a crime is in progress, the 9-1-1 system is set up and designed to provide the fastest and best coordinated response.”