A photo of Michael Mallinson, a 77-year-old retired banker living in Toronto, started circulating online shortly after right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot dead at a Utah college campus on Wednesday.
On social media, Mallinson was falsely identified as a suspect in the shooting—simply because he looked a little like a man who was briefly detained and then released by police after the fatal incident.
Why It Matters
As of early on Thursday, the manhunt for the killer of the 31-year-old founder of right-wing activist organization Turning Point USA was still ongoing, despite a previous statement by FBI Director Kash Patel saying that the suspect had been held in custody.
Two people were questioned by authorities in the aftermath of the shooting, but have since been released. The FBI, together with local and state law enforcement in Utah, continue searching for the shooter.
What To Know
Kirk was shot on the neck while speaking to a large crowd at Utah Valley University, the state’s largest public university.
All that we know of the suspect so far is that they probably shot at the right-wing influencer, a close Trump ally, from the Losee Center, a building about 200 yards away from the place where he was addressing students, according to a spokeswoman for the university.
In the chaotic moments that followed the shooting, a picture of a man being held by police at the Utah college campus started circulating online next to a picture of Mallinson, claiming he was a registered Democrat from Utah.
These posts quickly went viral and were reshared on social media platforms hundreds of times, despite a complete lack of evidence pointing at Mallinson being involved in the shooting in Utah.
Mallinson, in fact, was in Toronto, Canada, when the fatal shooting occurred, as he said on Wednesday. During a phone interview with the New York Times, Mallinson said he was “shocked” to see his name and face making the rounds on social media, as users accused him of being the shooter.
Mallinson is a father and patient advocate for a rare and painful form of arthritis he personally lives with, Axial Spondyloarthritis. Previously, according to his LinkedIn profile, he worked for 35 years in banking before retiring in 2011.
The rumor that sparked thousands of posts on social media falsely identifying Mallinson as the shooter apparently started from an account on X called Fox 11 Reno, a fake account with no affiliation with a Fox affiliate in Nevada.
In the aftermath of this post, Mallinson’s social media profiles—including an X account that was still active at the time—were closely scrutinized by other users. In some of the posts that followed, users made unjustified claims that Mallinson was “pure evil,” a “liberal boomer lunatic,” and a “far-left extremist” with a “Ukrainian connection.”
Mallinson told the New York Times that he received messages on Facebook from people calling him a “savage,” and other insults.
What People Are Saying
Mallinson told the New York Times on Wednesday: “I’m just shocked by it. How quickly it can happen, how one’s name and photo can get spread around quite quickly.”
He added: “I would expect, because the news cycle moves so quickly, that it will blow over soon. But there’s always a chance that some idiots somewhere will get hold of this information a few months from now and start making noise about it.”
The FBI and the Utah Public Safety Department said in a joint statement of the two people questioned so far over the shooting: “There are no current ties to the shooting with either of these individuals. There is an ongoing investigation and manhunt for the shooter.”
“The shooter is believed to have fired from the roof of a building down to the location of the public event in the student courtyard. Any additional clarifications cannot be provided to protect the integrity of our investigation.”
What Happens Next
Since the mixup online, Mallinson has shut down his social media profiles, trying to wipe out his online presence. He said that he has also reported what happened to the local police, and he is considering suing people who circulated falsehoods about him in relation to Kirk’s shooting.
Meanwhile, authorities were still on the hunt for the person who shot Kirk as of early on Thursday. Utah Valley University will remain closed until Monday.
The post Who Is Michael Mallinson? Man ‘Shocked’ After Baseless Charlie Kirk Claims appeared first on Newsweek.
