Featured Image Credit: CBC Toronto/ Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images
Topics: Charlie Kirk, Politics, US News, News
Jen Thomas
Topics: Charlie Kirk, Politics, US News, News
It's the stuff nightmares are made of, as vigilantes mistakenly identified a British father in connection with the Charlie Kirk killing.
In the terror and confusion after the 31-year-old political activist was shot dead, an elderly man came forward 'confessing' he was the one who fired the fatal shot.
Charlie Kirk had been answering questions about gun violence at an appearance at Utah Valley University, when he was shot and killed, and suspected gunman Tyler Robinson was arrested 33 hours later after an extensive manhunt.
The man who claimed to have shot Kirk was later identified as George Zinn, but he was released by police.
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A picture of the man went viral, and a fake social media account pretending to be a Nevada news channel, Fox Reno 11, shared the photo of him alongside the photo of a British father.
They claimed that the man in the photo was a retired banker living in Toronto, by the name of Michael Mallinson.
The problem was, Michael Mallinson is innocent, and has 'never set foot in Utah'.
A picture he had posted on social media featured a similar shirt and glasses to the man who claimed to be the killer, but that was where any similarities ended.
The traumatised father's details and location were plastered everywhere online, with his horrified daughter phoning him to tell him what had happened.
The 77-year-old retiree was woken from a nap by his panicked daughter on the phone telling him to delete all of his social media.
"This was all shock and horror, first of all, that there'd been a shooting, but second of all that I was in any way named or implicated in it," he told CBC News, and said he felt 'violated' by the claims.
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"We received a phone call from my youngest daughter Xandra, and she was telling me in a bit of a panicked way that I had to delete all my social media accounts," recalled Michael.
"I hadn't heard of the shooting, and I've never heard of Charlie Kirk so this was just shock and horror," he added.
"I received some nasty messages on Facebook, but I also heard from people that I don't know telling me to be warned that my name and face were out there," he said.
"Nevertheless, it's quite alarming that misinformation like this can spread so quickly."
Michael continued: "I've got a lot of friends worldwide on Facebook that I communicate with and I had to deactivate my accounts for a while without really even being able to tell them about anything. And now my wife and I are sending out emails to say, 'Hey, this is my image and name, but it's not me.'"