A man who was briefly handcuffed during the chaos of a mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl rally falsely accused himself of being one of the shooters and an illegal immigrant in a social media post. A Tennessee congressman was sued for doing so.
Denton Loudermill Jr., a resident of Olathe, Kansas, filed a federal lawsuit this week against U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, calling his comments “highly offensive, extremely derogatory and defamatory.” .
Burchett, a Republican, is serving his third term representing a district in eastern Tennessee. His spokeswoman, Rachel Partlow, said her office does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
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A mass shooting outside historic Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 14th left a famous DJ dead and injured more than 20 people, many of them children. Mr. Loudermill is not among those charged, but he is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.
When the shooting occurred, Loudermill stood in the middle of the chaos for a long time, and when he finally left, police placed crime scene tape, according to the complaint.
Congressman Tim Burchett on Thursday, December 14th in Washington, DC. (Fox News Digital)
As he tried to walk away under the tape, a police officer stopped him and told him he was “moving too slow.” They handcuffed him and placed him on the curb, where people began taking pictures and posting them on social media, according to the lawsuit.
Loudermill was eventually removed from the area and told he was free to return home.
Loudermill was born and raised in the United States and had never been detained, cited or arrested in connection with a shooting incident, according to the complaint. The lawsuit emphasizes that he was not involved and did not know any of the teens and young adults who were involved in the altercation before the shooting occurred.
But the next day, a photo of Loudermill was posted to Burchett’s account on X (previously known as Twitter). Above the photo were the words, “One of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Victory Parade shooters was found to be an illegal alien.”
A follow-up post on February 18 blamed the identification of “illegal aliens” on false reporting. But the post included in the lawsuit still referred to the man, who was handcuffed and sitting on the curb, as “one of the shooters.”
The complaint alleges that the “false claims” were reposted and widely distributed to more than 1 million people around the world.
The complaint describes Mr. Loudermill as a car wash employee, not a public figure, and “a contributing member of an African American family with deep and long roots in the Kansas community.”
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The man received death threats and experienced periods of “anxiety, agitation, and disturbed sleep,” according to the complaint.
