MISSION, Kan. (AP) — A man who was briefly handcuffed but not charged in the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl rally is suing three more lawmakers over social media posts falsely accusing him of being among the shooters and an immigrant in the country illegally.
Denton Loudermill Jr. of Olathe, Kansas, filed the nearly identical federal lawsuits Tuesday against three Republican Missouri state senators: Rick Brattin of Harrisonville, Denny Hoskins of Warrensburg and Nick Schroer of St. Charles County.
The complaints say Loudermill suffered “humiliation, embarrassment, insult, and inconvenience” over the “highly offensive” posts.
Loudermill made similar allegations last week in a lawsuit filed against U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee.
Schroer and Hoskins declined to comment, and Brattin did not immediately respond to a text message Wednesday seeking comment. A spokeswoman for Burchett said last week that the congressman’s office does not discuss pending litigation.
The Feb. 14 shooting outside the historic Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, killed a well-known DJ and injured more than 20 others, many of them children.
Loudermill, who was never cited or arrested in the shooting, is seeking at least $75,000 in damages in each of the suits.
According to the suits, Loudermill froze for so long after gunfire erupted that police had time to put up crime scene tape. As he tried to go under the tape to leave, officers stopped him and told him he was moving “too slow.”
They handcuffed him and put him on a curb, where people began taking pictures and posting them on social media. Loudermill ultimately was led away from the area and told he was free to go.
But posts soon began appearing on the lawmakers’ accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, that included a picture of Loudermill and called him an “illegal alien” and a “shooter,” the suits said.
Loudermill, who was born and raised in the U.S., received death threats even though he had no involvement in the shooting, according to the complaints.
The litigation described him as a “contributing member of his African-American family, a family with deep and long roots in his Kansas community.”
