Retired Canadian man falsely named as suspect who assassinated Charlie Kirk: report

As news of Charlie Kirk being shot at Utah college broke, a Canadian man found himself at the centre of the storm after his photo began circulating online as the suspect who shot the Conservative commentator, The New York Times reports.

Michael Mallinson was informed of the misidentification by a false American social media account during a call by his daughter on Wednesday. The 77-year-old retired banker lives and was in Toronto at the time of the incident. But the posts circulating online claimed he was registered Democrat from Utah and falsely identified him as the person who shot the 31-year-old Trump ally.

“I’m just shocked by it,” he told NYT. “How quickly it can happen, how one’s name and photo can get spread around quite quickly.”

The confusion, in part, could have been because of the resemblance Mallinson bears to the suspect who was briefly detained in the aftermath of the shooting. The accusation that the retired banker was a suspect appears to have originated from an X account “Fox 11 Reno.” The account bears no connection to real Fox affiliate in Nevada.

NYT reports that the account was “impersonating the station” and that they were trying to shut it down, a spokeswoman for Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns the Fox affiliate in Nevada, said.

• Trump announces conservative activist Charlie Kirk has died after being shot at Utah college event
• Who was Charlie Kirk? What to know about the conservative activist assassinated in Utah

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