Missouri Freedom Caucus deletes posts erroneously blaming Kansas City shooting on illegal immigration
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Several Missouri state senators shared now-deleted social media posts claiming a man arrested at the Kansas City Super Bowl parade was an illegal immigrant.
Gunfire broke out while around a million people celebrated the Kansas City Chiefs' second-straight Super Bowl win near Union Station. One woman was killed and 22 others injured.
Two adults have now been charged with felony murder in the shooting. Two juveniles have been detained and charged; their names have not been released.
In the hours and days following the shooting, unfounded information spread on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The conservative Missouri Freedom Caucus's account and members of the caucus shared pictures of a man being detained by police. The posts claimed he was an illegal immigrant named Sahil Omar and responsible for the shooting, which was revealed to be false information.
The Associated Press reports the name "Sahil Omar" has been accused by social media users in a hotel explosion in Fort Worth, but that was later disproven as well.
The man in the picture that circulated online is Denton Loudermill from Olathe, Kansas, who was detained for public intoxication, KMBC has reported.
The Freedom Caucus and several caucus members have now deleted these posts. The caucus shared a new post saying, "Denton is an Olathe native, a father of three & a proud Chiefs fan. He's not a mass shooter. Images of him being detained for being intoxicated & not moving away from the crime scene at the Chiefs rally have spread online. He just wants to clear his name."
ABC 17 News reached out to Sen. Denny Hoskins (R-Cooper County) and Sen. Rick Brattin (R-Bates County) about their posts that were still up early Tuesday calling on the president to close the borders because of the Kansas City shooting. They have not responded.
Sen. Lauren Arthur (D-Kansas City) got into an argument on X with Hoskins over his posts. She said the Freedom Caucus now owes the man an apology.
"As elected leaders, elected officials, we should hold ourselves to higher standards," Arthur said. "We have to earn the public's trust, and any time someone spreads a lie that does a lot to undermine and damage the trust that that the public may have in their elected officials."
More than half of X users get news from the social media site, according to the Pew Research Center, and 55% of Americans favor restrictions on false information on social media as complaints of inaccurate news spreading rise.
Julie Smith, a media literacy instructor at Webster University, suggests people implement a skill called lateral reading to make sure the sources they're getting news from are accurate.
"You check all sources to see if they're saying the same," Smith said. "And if it's just this one post on a social media platform that says something, that's usually our clue that it's not legit."
