A Compton father says he is fearing for his safety after a fake social media alert wrongly named him as the gunman who shot two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, and he is now speaking publicly to clear his name.
Darnell, 33, a youth football coach, was identified on Twitter as the person who opened fire on the deputies while they sat in their patrol vehicle outside a Compton transit station. The hoax circulated in less than a day after the Saturday night shooting. It looked like an official “be on the lookout” notice and included his driver’s license photo, address and full name, and it linked him to a gang. It claimed he was wanted for attempted murder.
Darnell says text messages began arriving, followed by death threats. He says he called the sheriff’s station out of fear for his family, which includes his two children and his elderly grandmother. He says he spent that Saturday dirt biking in Compton, has no connection to the shooting and has no idea who started the rumor. His attorney, Brian Dunn, said the episode shows how far people have drifted from rational thought.
The Sheriff’s Department responded on Sunday through its official Twitter account, calling the circulating post erroneous and saying there were no named or wanted suspects at that time. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said the department never issued the alert and described the information as false during a Monday briefing.
Community activist Jasmyne Cannick, who got involved at the request of Darnell’s friends, said the department’s early description of the suspect was so general that it opened the door to racial profiling. The initial description was of a dark skinned Black man between 28 and 30 years old. Cannick asked what might have happened if someone had believed he was the wanted man.
The two deputies, a 31 year old woman and a 24 year old man, remained in critical condition. Authorities say a man walked up to their vehicle, fired several shots through the passenger window and ran away on foot. They were struck in the face, head and arms.
The original poster has since deleted the fake alert, but Darnell says “nobody has taken responsibility” for it.
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