A Tennessee Republican is being sued for defamation over a social media post that falsely identified a Kansas man as a mass shooter.
Denton Loudermill Jr. filed a lawsuit Monday after Rep. Tim Burchett posted a tweet suggesting that Loudermill was a shooter at a Feb. 14 Super Bowl victory parade in Missouri, where one person was killed and at least 25 others were wounded.
On Feb. 15, Burchett took to X to share a photo of Loudermill being held by police amid the shooting, along with a caption saying that “One of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade shooters has been identified as an illegal Alien.”
Loudermill was not the shooter. Three adults and three juveniles face charges in connection with the shooting, according to prosecutors. Loudermill was briefly stopped at the parade location after police said that he was moving “too slow,” the lawsuit states. He was never charged with a crime.
“At no time was Plaintiff an ‘alien,’ an ‘illegal alien,’ nor a ‘shooter’ and the assertions to the contrary were false and were circulated widely among Defendant’s followers,” the lawsuit says.
Burchett’s tweet was reposted nearly 22,000 times and had 7.2 million views by the morning of Feb. 18, according to the lawsuit.
On Feb. 19, the congressman made a new post on X to correct his remarks, while still appearing to misrepresent Loudermill.
“It has come to my attention that in one of my previous posts, one of the shooters was identified as an illegal alien,” Burchett said, alongside an image of the Feb. 15 tweet showing Loudermill. “This was based on multiple, incorrect news reports stating that. I have removed the post.”
A “community note” attached to the Feb. 19 tweet points out that news organizations didn’t report Loudermill as a possible shooter, but only published a photo of him being held by police.
A spokesperson for Burchett declined to comment.
Loudermill said that he received death threats following the congressman’s online remarks.
“This is never going to go away for me,” he told The Washington Post. “This is going to go away for him. I will still have people looking at me and judging me for what he said.”
Loudermill is seeking $75,000 in damages.
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