6 April 25 - MAy 1, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Wrong Guy, Guys! Man misidentified as Allen shooter sues right-wing media outlets. BY JACOB VAUGHN N early a year after a gunman killed eight people at the Allen Premium Outlets, a lawsuit has emerged seek- ing damages for a man whose photograph was incorrectly plastered across certain news channels as the man responsible for the killings. Asked how he felt about the suit when it first hit his desk, attorney Greg Adler said: “Your heart sinks because you just imagine sitting in a restaurant with your family and on the TV screen there’s a news segment playing where they say ‘Allen po- lice have identified the identity of the shooter from the massacre at the Allen mall a couple of days ago, and it’s this per- son.’ And instead of putting up the real shooter’s picture, they put up your pic- ture.” All you have to do is imagine that sce- nario to understand where Mauricio Gar- cia is coming from with his suit, Adler said. With help from his attorneys, Mauricio Garcia filed a lawsuit against several media personalities and agencies for misidentifying him as the Allen Premium Outlets mall shooter. The suit alleges he was defamed by the publications and personalities. He’s seek- ing $1 million in damages through the suit. The suit reads, “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 mur- derer to his local community and the na- tion at large.” Lawyers Mark Bankston and Greg Adler have filed suit against Fox, Newsmax, Tele- visaUnivision, Timcast, Steven Crowder, Owen Shroyer, Simon Ateba and Hollywood Unlocked for misidentifying their client. Their client shares the same first and last name as the shooter, 33-year-old Mauricio Martinez Garcia. The lawsuit says that on May 6 last year, an individual began shooting visitors at the Allen Premium Outlets mall, killing five adults and three children, and wounding seven others in a matter of minutes. The shooter, Mauricio Martinez Garcia, was a far-right extremist whose online writings echoed white supremacist, neo-Nazi and “incel” ideologies, according to the lawsuit. “Incel” is short for involuntarily celibate. The shooter committed the massacre while wearing a tactical vest embroidered with the acronym “RWDS,” which stands for Right Wing Death Squad. No details about the shooter were re- leased on the day of the murders, but several media agencies and personalities tried to identify the suspect the following day using his name and date of birth. The suit alleges that the Fox News website posted an article that recklessly included an image of inno- cent 36-year-old Mauricio Garcia, identify- ing him as the shooter. “There was no justifiable reason to use my client’s image as the shooter,” Bankston wrote on X. “The suit alleges that Fox News failed to exercise reasonable care in verify- ing the accuracy of the photograph.” The suit also claims that Mauricio Garcia requested a retraction from Fox within 30 days but that didn’t happen. Then Shroyer, host of “War Room” on Alex Jones’ conspiracy theory site in- fowars.com, broadcast an image of Mauri- cio Garcia, alleging he was the shooter. Shroyer never published a retraction, ac- cording to the suit. Hollywood Unlocked also ran an article portraying Bankston and Adler’s client as the shooter. The media organization failed to publish a retraction within 30 days of Mauricio Garcia’s request to do so. Ateba and his media outlet Today’s News Africa, repeatedly published articles featuring im- ages of the innocent Garcia as the shooter as well. “Again, there was no justifiable basis to use my client’s photograph,” Bankston wrote on X. Two shows on Newsmax presented ex- tended segments focusing on Mauricio Gar- cia as the shooter. Newsmax tried to use Mauricio Garcia’s image to suggest the crime was not motivated by neo-Nazisim, according to the suit. “Our client Mauricio is a proud Chi- cano, and he has classic Dallas lowrider style,” Bankston wrote. “In short, our client does not look like the kind of Mexican American who might identify with white supremacy.” One of the shows also tried to link Bankston and Adler’s client to the prison gang “Puro Tango Blast,” with which he is not affiliated. Newsmax pub- lished a retraction before Mauricio Garcia could ask for one. His photo was also published repeat- edly by right-wing media personality Ste- ven Crowder and his company, Louder with Crowder LLC. He, too, tried to use Mauricio Garcia’s Chicano appearance to deny the shooter’s neo-Nazi motives. Mauricio Garcia demanded a retraction but never got one. Right-wing media personality Tim Pool’s Timcast Media Group, Inc. repeatedly pub- lished photos of Bankston and Adler’s client, portraying him as the shooter. The thumb- nail for Pool’s daily show on Youtube in- cluded a photo of Mauricio Garcia instead of the actual shooter. Programs on TelevisaUnivision also showed images of Mauricio Garcia and identified him as the shooter. The station read a correction on air but never ran a re- traction. Many of the media organizations and personalities named in the suit could not be reached for comment, but Adler said he guesses they will likely file motions to dis- miss the lawsuit altogether. TelevisaUnivision declined to com- ment through a spokesperson because the station does not comment on pending liti- gation. Adler said these kinds of lawsuits are important “because if somebody doesn’t stand up to them and make them start be- ing diligent and respecting their obliga- tions to get the facts straight before they publish things that can ruin people’s lives, they’ll just keep doing it.” ▼ POLICE ‘STOP COP CITY’ PROPOSED DPD TRAINING FACILITY FACES LOCAL OPPOSITION. BY JACOB VAUGHN T amara Neal, a third-generation Dalla- site who grew up in South Oak Cliff, now lives downtown, but her south- ern Dallas roots remain strong. She’s trying to make an impact on her former home by advocating for people to vote against propo- sition F in the 2024 bond package. She wants to stop a new police training facility from being built in her old part of town. Proposition F includes $50 million for the construction of a new Dallas police training academy at the University of North Texas at Dallas. The biggest problem with this specific prop, she said, is the lack of community buy-in for the project. “The entire process has not been com- munity-centered,” Neal said. “The commu- nity needs to be brought to the table before you say how much money you get to assign to a militarized police training facility.” She’s organizing with a group called Com- munity Movement Builders, hoping to con- vince enough people to vote against proposition F to stop the new facility from springing up in the largely Black and Latino community that surrounds UNT Dallas. There’s also a grassroots effort called Stop Cop City Coalition aimed to stop proposition F. In 2013, the organization Stand for Chil- dren – Dallas released data on what some call the cradle-to-prison pipeline, a term used to describe the odds that a child winds up in prison based upon where they grew up, according to The Dallas Morning News. Based on 2008 data, the organization’s re- search identified areas of the city that ac- count for the most inmates in state prisons. Ten Dallas ZIP codes accounted for 3,100 prisoners. All but one were in the southern part of the city, including 75241, where UNT Dallas sits. “That automatically lets you know that the community has been targeted,” Neal said. “This community has been dispropor- tionately and unfairly targeted by law en- forcement. … It is the wrong investment in the wrong time for the wrong purpose.” She would rather see the money address other community needs, such as health care and housing. “We have to think about the overall well-being of this community,” she said. Neal isn’t alone in this thinking. Yafeuh Balogun, an activist, area resident and precinct chair for the Dallas County Democrats, said he, too, would like to see the money spent differently. “I feel that the proposed money should go toward having a legitimate grocery store, or helping create summer jobs for at-risk youth, or finding ways to promote financial literacy, versus putting a police academy directly in the community,” Balogun said. According to a press release from UNT Dallas, plans call for the facility to sit on a five-acre section of the college’s 268-acre campus. It would be adjacent to a park shared by the campus and training fa- Stewart F. House/Getty Images The real Allen Premium Outlets mall shooter was 33-year-old Mauricio Martinez Garcia, not innocent 36-year-old Mauricio Garcia. | UNFAIR PARK | >> p8
