Quick Take
Kansas City authorities charged two juvenile suspects with crimes connected to the Feb. 14 shootings at the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory celebration, in which one person was killed and 22 others were injured. Social media posts falsely identified one of the shooting suspects as “Sahil Omar, a 44 year old illegal.” A police spokesperson said that was a “fake claim.”
Full Story
The Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade and celebration on Feb. 14 ended with a mass shooting outside the city’s Union Station building. One woman, radio DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan, was killed, and 22 other people — half of them younger than 16 — were injured during the shootings and panic that followed, the Associated Press reported.
Kansas City, Missouri, police detained two juvenile suspects who were charged on Feb. 16 with gun-related offenses and resisting arrest, authorities told the AP. The shootings appeared to have been sparked by a dispute, police said, and several guns were found at the scene. A third person, also a juvenile, had been detained but was released, police told ABC News.
None of those detained has been identified by police. But some social media posts have falsely claimed that one of those held by authorities was a 44-year-old “illegal immigrant.”
“At least one of the Kansas City Chiefs parade shooters identified as Sahil Omar, a 44 year old illegal immigrant. Biden has failed to protect America from invasion and terrorism,” one Instagram post claimed. The post, which shows a photo of a man in a red sweatsuit sitting on a curb between police officers, received more than 1,200 likes.
But the claim is wrong.
A Kansas City Police spokesperson told us in a Feb. 16 email that police have seen the post and image on social media and called it “false information/fake claim.”
“The two people that remain in custody are juveniles, thus not the individual named Omar. There’s no indication that person is involved in the shooting,” the police spokesperson said.
USA Today reported that the name Sahil Omar had previously been falsely linked in social media posts to a hotel explosion in Fort Worth, Texas, on Jan. 8, and to a shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in December.
Update, Feb. 20: Two Missouri residents, Dominic M. Miller of Kansas City and Lyndell Mays of Raytown, were charged with murder in the second degree and other felonies on Feb. 20 in the shooting that followed the Super Bowl parade, the Jackson County prosecutor said. The two juveniles charged with resisting arrest and gun-related offenses may still be charged as adults, and prosecutors said more arrests were possible, the New York Times reported.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Sources
Associated Press. “Things to know about the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration.” 16 Feb 2024.
Byik, Andre. “‘Sahil Omar’ not a suspect in Kansas City Chiefs parade shooting.” USA Today. 15 Feb 2024.
Haworth, Jon and Emily Shapiro. “Kansas City Chiefs parade shooting: Police determining ‘applicable charges’ for juvenile suspects.” ABC News. 16 Feb 2024.
Ingram, Nick, Scott McFetridge and Jim Salter. “2 juveniles charged in mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade.” 16 Feb 2024.
Kansas City Police spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 16 Feb 2024.