Fox News and many other media outlets are facing a major lawsuit after they accused the wrong many for being a mass shoot and neo-Nazi.
In March 2023, a shooter in a Dallas mall killed eight people and injured several others. Authorities identified the shooter as Mauricio Garcia, a Nazi sympathizer. He was killed by a police officer who “happened to be at Allen Premium Outlets, about 25 miles north of Dallas, according to NBC News.
The problem for Fox News and their friends was that they ran a photo of the wrong Mauricio Garcia.
The Daily Caller reports:
A Dallas County resident has initiated a defamation lawsuit against Fox News and various alternative media outlets after he was mistakenly identified as a neo-Nazi involved in a shooting at a Texas outlet mall. The erroneous identification occurred following the incident at Allen Premium Outlets on May 6, 2023, where Mauricio Garcia, 33, fatally shot eight people, including a family of four, and injured seven others. The actual perpetrator, who was killed by police at the scene, was allegedly known as a white supremacist, according to Law & Crime.
However, a different individual, also named Mauricio Garcia, aged 36, claimed his image was erroneously broadcast and utilized by multiple media organizations, tarnishing his reputation by depicting him as the assailant. This Garcia claims he had no connection to the violent acts, the outlet reported. His legal team, led by attorney Mark Bankston, has filed a comprehensive 29-page lawsuit in Travis County District Court, detailing the misuse of Garcia’s image across various platforms, including on Fox News’ website and during broadcasts on Newsmax’s shows like “The Balance with Eric Bolling” and “Greg Kelly Reports.”
The suit accuses these organizations of bypassing fundamental journalistic standards and acting with reckless disregard for the truth. For instance, despite being presented with a demand for a retraction, Fox News allegedly did not comply nor issue any response or correction regarding the misuse of Garcia’s image, Law & Crime stated.
“Each of these media outlets recklessly portrayed our client as a neo-Nazi mass murderer, and each of them have shown him nothing but disrespect,” Bankston wrote on Twitter. “That is something we cannot accept. We will not allow media organizations to falsely accuse an innocent man of being a neo-Nazi mass murderer without being held accountable. We’ll see them in court.”
The lawsuit says that “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.”
Huffington Post reported that Garcia’s lawyer, Mark Bankston, isn’t shy about taking on big names.
“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.”
The news channel is still digging itself out of a massive lawsuit by Dominion Voting Machines, which won a suit worth over $750 million over comments made on the channel about the 2020 election.
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