Fox News, Far-Right Podcasters Sued For Linking Wrong Man To Neo-Nazi Shooting
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A group of media organizations and far-right podcasters were hit with a libel lawsuit last month after sharing an image of a man they wrongly identified as a neo-Nazi mass shooter.
Texas man Mauricio Garcia, 36, alleges several media organizations, including Fox News and Newsmax, used an image of him in their coverage of a mass shooting last year that falsely linked him to the real shooter.
The real gunman — a 33-year-old white supremacist who killed eight people and wounded seven others at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas before he was fatally shot by police — shares the same name as the plaintiff.
“In their haste to cash in on the eagerness of viewers and readers to learn the identity of the May 6, 2023 mass shooter at the outlet mall in Allen, Texas, several media organizations recklessly disregarded basic journalistic safeguards and published the photo of an innocent man, branding him as a neo-Nazi murderer to his local community and the nation at large,” the lawsuit, filed March 26 and obtained by HuffPost, alleges.
Among the defendants accused of sharing the innocent man’s photo are far-right podcasters Tim Pool and Steven Crowder, along with Infowars host Owen Shroyer. Other media organizations named as defendants include the conservative cable channels Fox News and Newsmax; entertainment blog Hollywood Unlocked, TelevisaUnivision, the parent company of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision; and foreign policy news site Today News Africa.
The lawsuit says the news organizations misidentified the shooter between May 7 and May 9.
Fox News, for instance, is accused of publishing 36-year-old Garcia’s image on FoxNews.com in a story about the gunman.
“Fox News Network, LLC refused to publish a retraction within 30 days,” the lawsuit says. “Indeed, no retraction has ever been published. Fox completely ignored Plaintiff and never responded.”
You can read the full lawsuit here.
HuffPost reached out to the defendants in the case but did not receive a response back.
Garcia is being represented by Mark Bankston of the law firm Farrar & Ball, as well as attorney Greg Adler.
Bankston previously represented two Sandy Hook parents who won $45 million in damages against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, after Jones spent years falsely claiming the 2012 school shooting never happened on his Infowars show. Bankston is also currently representing a 22-year-old Jewish man who alleges he was falsely linked to a neo-Nazi brawl by billionaire Elon Musk.
Garcia’s lawsuit contains a letter his mom sent to a Univision journalist after she saw her son’s photo on the network. The letter, written in Spanish, said her son’s “only sin was to be called the same Mauricio Garcia,” according to the lawyers’ translation.
“They have made a very serious mistake, they have destroyed my life and that of my family, Mauricio’s grandfather, my son was scared to death!!!” she wrote. “I am going to send you the photo that is my son and I have received death threats and hatred!!!”
‘Here’s Where We Get Into The Psyop’
Following the shooting, details began to trickle in about the real gunman’s identity.
Mauricio Garcia, 33, wore a patch during the shooting with the letters “RWDS,” or “Right Wing Death Squad” on it — a common sight at extremist gatherings, including at the deadly neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. And posts from the gunman on Russian social media revealed he had a large swastika tattoo.
“We do know that he had neo-Nazi ideation,” Hank Sibley, North Texas regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a press conference following the massacre. “He had patches. He had tattoos. Even his signature verified that.”
Despite evidence of the gunman’s neo-Nazi beliefs, many on the right — including Musk — dismissed the idea that the shooting could’ve been motivated by right-wing extremism, instead suggesting it was a government conspiracy.
One of those people was Tim Pool, a beanie-wearing podcaster who has hostedwhite supremacist Nick Fuentes and right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos on his show.
When discussing the shooter’s social media profile on his program, “Timcast IRL,” Pool said: “You see, here’s where we get into the psyop,” according to the lawsuit.
“No one knows if this Russian social media profile is actually — actually belongs to this guy,” Pool said, the suit alleges. “Now the photos that are coming out, … they don’t show his face.”
Pool added that he didn’t want to show photos of the potential shooter “considering the sensitive nature of these things,” the lawsuit says. But Pool’s media group had already published a photo of a different man — the plaintiff Garcia — on its website, according to the suit.
Pool’s company, Timcast Media Group, is listed as a defendant.
“Despite Plaintiff’s demand, Timcast Media Group, Inc. refused to publish a retraction within 30 days,” the lawsuit says. “Indeed, despite acknowledging Plaintiff’s demand and deleting the articles, no retraction has ever been published.”
According to the suit, Pool wasn’t alone in publishing the wrong photo while also claiming the shooting was a government conspiracy. Shroyer, who served prison time for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, allegedly showed a photo of the wrong Garcia on his Infowars program, “The War Room With Owen Shroyer.”
More from the lawsuit:
While showing innocent Plaintiff Mauricio Garcia’s photograph, Shroyer stated: “They’re the ones who call a Hispanic man a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi. His name was Mauricio Garcia, your neo-Nazi [laugh] white supremacist. But we know now, this is the Leftist logic, we know now that it actually has nothing to do with skin color. It has everything to do with politics. Don’t you know?”
Crowder, a right-wing podcaster who has gone on anti-LGBTQ+ rants and in 2019 was was accused of a years-long campaign of homophobic and racist harassment against a Vox Media reporter, was also named in the suit for his coverage of the Texas shooting.
On his show, “Louder With Crowder,” Crowder allegedly displayed a photo of the plaintiff and identified him as the shooter. The plaintiff’s image was also published in an article on Crowder’s website.
From the lawsuit:
In the body of the article, the Louder with Crowder author stated that the website tends not “to share photos of killers, but since the media refuses to, this is the new face of white supremacy.” Immediately below this statement, Plaintiff’s photograph appeared.
Despite the claim that “the media refuse[d]” to share images of the killer, actual photos of the shooter had been published by other media organizations.
Both Stephen [sp] Crowder and the Louder with Crowder article discussed ― but dismissed ― reporting on the social media profile where verifiable photos of the shooter could be found, including photos matching the hand tattoo seen on the shooter’s body.
The lawsuit adds that “despite acknowledging the Plaintiff’s demand, no retraction has ever been published” by Crowder.
Garcia is seeking more than $1 million in damages.
