Missouri AG To Represent GOP Legislators Who Falsely Accused Random Man Of A Mass Shooting
What a swell use of the state's tax money!
Earlier this year, right-wing social media users ruined a man’s life for no good reason. Or at least a significant part of it.
In the aftermath of the February 14 mass shooting during the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade, Denton Loudermill was “identified” as one of the shooters. Sort of. A popular MAGA Twitter user who goes by the name Mischief — and, naturally, has a blue check and 166K followers — shared a picture of him and claimed that not only was he the shooter, but that he was an “illegal immigrant” with an entirely different name.
“At least one of the Kansas City Chiefs parade shooters identified as Sahil Omar, a 44 year old illegal immigrant. Biden has failed to protect America from invasion and terrorism,” he wrote in a viral post.
This information was shared with great joy by conservatives on Twitter, including three Republican Missouri lawmakers, state Sens. Rick Brattin, Denny Hoskins and Nick Schroer and seen by at least 25 million people, many of whom immediately took to bandying about death threats.
In reality, Loudermill was detained for other reasons related to intoxication and is a United States citizen. So, in April, he sued their asses.
“Sahil Omar,” by the way, is a non-existent person often “blamed,” by right-wing trolls, for mass shootings and other tragedies. Had the senators bothered to Google, they would have learned this. But no. They trusted a guy who calls himself “Mischief.”
Perhaps even more gallingly (and controversially), Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey will defend the three senators in the lawsuit. Their legal expenses will be covered by a legal fund established by statute.
“We are not suing the Senators in their official capacity,” Loudermill’s attorney LaRonna Lassiter-Saunders said in a statement criticizing the move. “It would seem this use of tax dollars would raise concerns and questions from Missouri residents. One question being, if a resident was sued in a non-official capacity, would the Attorney General come to their rescue and represent them?”
We can assume he would not!
Bailey, however, argues that the legislators were acting in their official capacity when they falsely accused this man of being a mass shooter, and that they are therefore protected by “legislative immunity” — which, somehow, is even more disturbing.
Bailey has already filed to have the lawsuit against Sen. Brattin dropped, on account of the fact that the “incident” took place in Missouri and not in Kansas where the lawsuit was filed.
We should all know by now that there are people who seek to take advantage of chaotic events to push lies — either as a prank or as propaganda. We have seen trolls do this with mass shooters, in particular, over and over again.
It is easy to understand why Republicans keep falling for nonsense like this. For one, they don’t trust “the mainstream media,” and therefore are definitely not going to wait for things to actually be confirmed by it.
For another, they know that every time there is a mass shooting, there is going to be another discussion about gun control, which they would very much like to avoid. Although this rarely goes anywhere legislatively, it usually makes them look like incredible assholes who don’t care if people live or die. They also know that, a good deal of the time, it’s gonna be a white guy with a wacked-out manifesto about how much he hates women, LGBTQ+ people, Black people, sexually active people, religious minorities, undocumented immigrants, or his fervent belief in some far-right conspiracy like Pizzagate or QAnon. They are dying for the shooter to be an undocumented immigrant or a trans person, so that they can have the opportunity to say “See! We told you these people are bad!”
They accuse us of “politicizing” these tragedies by sensibly reacting to them by calling for gun control, as if “preventing mass shootings” is not one of our top reasons for wanting gun control in the first place. But people like these state senators would clearly give anything to be able to politicize the issue in their own favor.
That is why things like this happen. People get so excited for a particular narrative to be true that they don’t even bother to find out whether it is actually true or not.
As I like to say, with regard to chaotic news situations and information “going viral” on social media, there is always the option of keeping one’s mouth shut until all the facts are in. I realize that we live in a time of hot takes and that being quick on the draw has its benefits, but it’s better to be slow and accurate than quick and wrong. Least of all because the latter could get your ass sued.
PREVIOUSLY:
"But no. They trusted a guy who calls himself “Mischief.”"
or Catturd for that matter
"Bailey, however, argues that the legislators were acting in their official capacity when they falsely accused this man of being a mass shooter"
Unless they were making their statements accusing him of being the shooter on the floor of the Missouri State Senate, the logic that this was in their "official capacity" is strained. At best.