Fox News, Newsmax, Steven Crowder, Tim Pool Sued by Man Claiming They Falsely Identified Him as Neo-Nazi Mass Shooter

A 36-year-old Dallas man had the bad luck to share the same name, Mauricio Garcia, as the mass shooter who killed eight people and wounded seven at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas on May 6, 2023, and is now suing multiple media outlets whom he says falsely identified him as the shooter, causing “damage his reputation and image” and “a severe degree of mental stress, anguish, fear, personal embarrassment, and psychological harm which has disrupted his daily affairs.”

The Mauricio Martinez Garcia who was the actual gunman was 33 years old and was shot dead by police officers who responded to the scene. News reports in the aftermath of the shooting described him as armed with an AR-15 and wearing a tactical vest with a “RWDS” patch on it, an acronym for “Right Wing Death Squad,” a phrase popular among white supremacists, multiple Nazi tattoos, as well as social media posts that indicated neo-Nazi beliefs and other racially- and ethnically-focused violent rhetoric.

Amateur internet sleuths dug up a 2022 mugshot of the 36-year-old Garcia, when he was arrested for an unrelated matter, and claimed he was the shooter. That was incorrect, but the photo nonetheless went viral online – and was also shared in reports by multiple television networks and podcasts.

Garcia’s lawsuit, filed in county court in Austin, Texas, names as defendants Fox News, Newsmax, Univision, Steven Crowder and his Louder with Crowder media company, podcaster Tim Pool’s company Timcast Media Group, host of InfoWars’ War Room Owen Shroyer, Jason Lee’s podcast company Hollywood Unlocked, Today News Africa, and that outlet’s White House correspondent Simon Ateba. Each of the defendants is accused of having “recklessly disregarded basic journalistic safeguards” by publishing “the photo of an innocent man, branding him as a neo-Nazi murderer to his local community and the nation at large” in reports dated May 7 through 9, 2023.

The complaint, first reported by The Huffington Post, describes in detail the reports by each of these media outlets and personalities that “displayed a graphic with a photograph of the Plaintiff” or “used an image of innocent 36-year-old Plaintiff Mauricio Garcia to portray the gunman,” “failed to exercise reasonable care in verifying the accuracy of the photograph published to depict the mass murderer,” and “acted with reckless disregard for the truth and published the photo while willfully ignoring elementary journalistic precautions.”

For each of the alleged false reports, the complaint states Garcia sent a retraction demand letter pursuant to Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code § 73.055, but “no retraction has ever been published.”

Several of the defendants are accused of not just showing a photograph of the plaintiff Garcia and identifying him as the shooter, like Fox News is accused of doing on their website, but also using his appearance to attempt to cast doubt on reports about the shooter’s neo-Nazi ideology and suggest some sort of government coverup conspiracy.

Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher previously reported how two Newsmax programs on May 9, 2023 hosted by Eric Bolling and Greg Kelly showed the falsely-identified photo and suggested “the shooter was being falsely posed as a white supremacist in order to impugn ‘MAGA.'” The complaint adds that Newsmax’s reporting also falsely accused the plaintiff of being affiliated with a prison gang, “Puro Tango Blast.”

Crowder is accused of displaying a photo of plaintiff Garcia on his Louder with Crowder show and calling him the gunman, as well as publishing the photo in multiple places on his website:

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 [sic] 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.

Likewise, Shroyer — who was sentenced to two months in prison after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — showed plaintiff Garcia’s photo and mocked the reports the shooter was a neo-Nazi:

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?”

Pool also claimed the reports about the shooter’s ideology were a “psyop,” questioned whether the social media account attributed to him “actually belongs to this guy,” used the plaintiff’s photo for the thumbnail for the video post of his show, and falsely claimed media reports were not showing photographs of the shooter’s face, according to the complaint. Notably, several posts by Timcast reporters got replies from Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly Twitter, greatly expanding their reach. Musk is not named as a defendant in this lawsuit but was recently sued by another man, Ben Brody, for falsely accusing him of being a neo-Nazi.

The complaint further accuses Pool of having “amplified the damage” to plaintiff Garcia by spending days “continu[ing] to cast doubt on the event and tell his audience that the event was a psyop or staged government conspiracy.”

Spanish-language Univision is accused of showing the photo of plaintiff Garcia on two shows that draw massive ratings: Primer Impacto and Noticiero Univision, the network’s flagship evening news program hosted by Jorge Ramos, whom the complaint describes as “arguably the most trusted media figure in the world.”

Garcia’s mother was especially upset by the Univision broadcasts, the complaint alleges. She wrote a message over social media to Andrea Rega, a Dallas-based Univision journalist, describing how she was in a “very bad state” because of “her family’s emotional distress and her son’s intense fear and shame due to his misidentification.”

“They have made a very serious mistake, they have destroyed my life and that of my family…my son was scared to death!!!” wrote Garcia’s mother, according to an English translation in the complaint. “I have received death threats and hatred!!!”

Rega wrote back to Garcia’s mother, saying she was sorry and would call her, but did not do so. Univision did remove an episode of a low-rated YouTube show that used plaintiff Garcia’s photo but didn’t issue any corrections or retractions for the television programs, which reached a far broader audience, according to the complaint — and even initially denied the photo had been used on those highly-rated tv shows.

Ateba — infamous for his disruptive behavior at White House press briefings — is accused in the complaint of  writing two articles for Today News Africa’s website that “repeatedly featured a photo of the Plaintiff, identifying him as the gunman,” as well as using that image in tweets promoting the articles.

The complaint alleges that Garcia “has suffered…a severe degree of mental stress, anguish, fear, personal embarrassment, and psychological harm which has disrupted his daily affairs” and “damage to his reputation and image” and seeks both nominal damages and exemplary damages under Texas law, “because the Defendants acted with actual malice, or alternatively, failed to provide a retraction within 30 days of Plaintiff’s demand and acted with negligence.”

Garcia is demanding total damages “that exceed $1,000,000,” plus pre- and post-judgment interest and costs. He is represented by attorneys Greg Adler and Mark Bankston.

Bankston, who successfully represented some of the Sandy Hook parents in their defamation lawsuits against Alex Jones and is currently representing Brody in his lawsuit against Musk, pointed to a long tweet thread he posted when Mediaite reached out for comment. In the tweets, Bankston described how these media outlets falsely accused his client of being the gunman and some of them used his “proud Chicano” appearance to “deny the crime was motivated by neo-Nazism.”

“Our client Mauricio is a proud Chicano, and he has classic Dallas lowrider style,” wrote Bankston. “In short, our client does not look like the kind of Mexican American who might identify with white supremacy. Newsmax used this fact to support the idea that the shooter was not actually a neo-Nazi.” Bankston also blasted the network for accusing his client of being affiliated with a prison gang, writing, “[i]f you’re a Chicano in the Dallas-area, being labeled a member of ‘Puro Tango Blast’ is a genuine threat to your life.”

Bankston concluded his tweet thread by sharing how Garcia was “tortured” and “devastated” by the false media reports:

The thing you’ve got to understand about our client Mauricio is that he’s a really chill guy, a bit goofy and very outgoing, but also very shy. Being labeled as a neo-mass child killer by all these media outlets devastated him.

People called Mauricio’s mom and expressed their condolences that her son was the shooter. The family also received threats.

And Mauricio is tortured by the idea of all the people he’s known through his life who didn’t contact the family and will continue to believe the story. And he can’t stop thinking about the millions of strangers who saw him as the murderer.

In short, 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.

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.

“We decline to comment,” a TelevisaUnivision spokesperson told Mediaite. Fox News, Steven Crowder, Newsmax, InfoWars, Owen Shroyer, Tim Pool, Univision, Hollywood Unlocked, Today News Africa, and Simon Ateba did not respond to requests for comment at the time of this article’s publication.

Read the full complaint below:

Fox News, NewsMax, Steven C… by Sarah Rumpf

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